Hunt for home of Cockleshell Hero (From Echo)

Hunt for home of Cockleshell Hero

6:00pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Castle Point

Hero - Bill Sparks

HISTORIANS have appealed for help in finding the former home of a Second World War hero so they can put up a commemorative plaque in his honour.

Bill Sparks was one of a famous group of commandos known as the “Cockleshell Heroes” who paddled canoes 85 miles into German-occupied France, to blow up merchant shipping in the port of Bordeaux.

He was one of ten brave men who took part in Operation Frankton, on December 11, 1942, causing considerable damage to five ships.

But the mission came at a cost, as eight of Bill’s comrades were shot or drowned and he only survived after being pursued by the Nazis for three months across France and Spain with the only other survivor Major Herbert “Blondie” Hasler.

They managed to escape to Gibraltar and eventually made it back to Britain.

Bill lived on Canvey in the Eighties and died aged 80, in 2002. Historians now want to find his former address and put up the plaque in tribute.

Janet Penn, from the Canvey community archive, said: “The Cockleshell Heroes played an important role in boosting morale back home, at a time when Britain was struggling during the war.

“We had lost several battles to the Germans and it boosted people’s spirits to think we could send troops behind enemy lines and blow up their ships.”

She added: “He was a real hero and we would like to honour him with a plaque, but need help finding out where he lived. We think his home was somewhere in the Labworth area and he left Canvey in around 1986.”

Bill was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for bravery and enterprise in 1943 by King George VI.

During the rest of the war, he served in Burma, North Africa and Italy.

Billionaire businessman Lord Ashcroft bought the medal from Bill for £31,000 at a Sotheby’s auction in the late Eighties.

Bill was born in East London and work as a bus inspector in London after the war.

It is thought he was survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. Anyone with information about Bill’s former address can e-mail jan at jan@canveyisland.org