Charles McAllister Jarvie

Charles McAllister Jarvie was born in Glasgow on 9 May 1922, a son of Charles and Nellie Jarvie and younger brother of Helen. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force in July 1940, around the time of his eighteenth birthday, but waited a long period before being selected for aircrew, finally undertaking gunnery training in September 1942. Posted to the newly formed No. 467 Squadron at RAF Bottesford that autumn, he flew his first operations from January 1943 and eventually crewed up with the Canadian pilot Pilot Officer Vernon Byers, with whom the whole crew was transferred to the new No. 617 Squadron on 28 March 1943. On the night of the Dams Raid, Operation Chastise (16/17 May 1943), Sergeant Jarvie flew as front gunner in Lancaster ED934, coded AJ-K, in the second wave tasked against the Sorpe Dam. Their aircraft was the first loss of the operation: while crossing the Dutch coast at low level it was hit by flak from the batteries on the island of Texel at around 23:00 and crashed into the Waddenzee west of Harlingen, killing all seven men aboard. Jarvie’s body was never recovered, and he is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial (Air Forces Memorial) in Surrey, which honours airmen lost over north-west Europe who have no known grave.