Gordon Arthur Yeo

Gordon Arthur Yeo was born on 9 July 1922 in Barry Dock, Glamorgan, the son of Arthur and Ada Yeo, and was the youngest member of the crew with which he was to fly on the Dams Raid. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 hoping to train as a pilot and was sent to an Elementary Flying School in Canada, but ultimately qualified as an air gunner. Yeo crewed up at 1660 Conversion Unit at RAF Swinderby and moved with his crew to 57 Squadron at Scampton in mid-March 1943, by which time Squadron Leader Henry Melvin Young had become their pilot; on 25 March 1943 they were posted across the station into the newly formed No. 617 Squadron. On the night of 16/17 May 1943, Yeo flew as front gunner in Young’s Lancaster ED887/G, coded AJ-A, in the first wave against the Möhne Dam, where the crew’s “Upkeep” mine was released accurately and helped open the breach. Their aircraft was shot down by flak shortly after recrossing the Dutch coast on the homeward flight, and all seven men aboard were killed. Yeo’s body was washed ashore on 27 May 1943, together with those of fellow crewmen Lawrence Nichols and Vincent MacCausland, and he was buried at Bergen General Cemetery in Noord-Holland, in the Netherlands, where he is commemorated today.