John Gordon

John Gordon (service number 86721) was a Scotsman from Brackla in Inverness-shire, the son of Peter and Christina Gordon and husband of Rachel Gordon, who served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. By 1943 he was flying the de Havilland Mosquito B.IV with No. 105 Squadron, one of the pioneering low-level and precision day-bombing units of Bomber Command. On 30 January 1943 he took part in the squadron’s daring daylight Mosquito raid on Berlin — a flight of more than 500 miles, much of it over heavily defended territory and demanding exact timing — for which a group of decorations, gazetted on 12 February 1943, was made in recognition of the crews’ skill, calm courage and endurance in pressing home the attack. Gordon was killed in the early hours of 5 November 1943, aged 25: returning from a raid on the chemical works at Leverkusen, his Mosquito DZ587 was crippled and flying on one engine, and during an attempted emergency landing in Norfolk the aircraft’s wing dropped, struck a tree and the machine crashed at Road Green Farm near Hempnall, killing both crew. He is buried at Kileanan Burial Ground in Scotland, near its north-west corner.