William Edward Sparks DSM (5 September 1922 – 1 December 2002) was a British Royal Marine Commando in World War II.
He was the last survivor of the "Cockleshell Heroes" of Operation Frankton in 1942; a team of commandos who paddled 85 miles from the Bay of Biscay up the Gironde estuary to Bordeaux in German occupied France, to plant limpet mines on merchant ships supplying the Nazi war machine.
Sparks was born in Bartholomew Buildings, Seward Street, Clerkenwell, London and joined the Royal Marines upon the outbreak of World War II.
[1] The two survivors, Sparks and Major Herbert "Blondie" Hasler, made their way overland to the town of Ruffec, There, they met escape line leader, Mary Lindell, who arranged for them to be smuggled across the border into Spain from where they reached safety in Gibraltar.
Sparks lived for many years in Loughton, Essex, where he is commemorated by a blue plaque on his house there, before moving in the early seventies to Canvey Island.