Alden Preston Cottam

Alden Preston Cottam was a Canadian airman, born on 29 August 1912 in Edmonton, Alberta, the only son in a family of five raised in the railway town of Jasper, where his father worked for the Canadian National Railway and Alden himself worked as a clerk and driver before the war. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in February 1941 and trained as a wireless operator/air gunner, reaching England and being posted in October 1942 to No. 50 Squadron at RAF Swinderby. There he became part of the crew captained by Squadron Leader Henry Maudslay DFC, and when Maudslay moved to the newly formed No. 617 Squadron for the Dams Raid, Cottam followed, joining on 25 March 1943 as the crew’s wireless operator. On the night of 16/17 May 1943, during Operation Chastise, he flew as wireless operator in Lancaster ED937 (AJ-Z) with the first wave; the aircraft was the second to attack the Eder Dam, where its mine overshot and the Lancaster was damaged, and Cottam transmitted a ‘Goner’ message reporting the attack before the badly hit aircraft was shot down on the return flight, crashing near Klein Netterden in Germany in the early hours of 17 May with the loss of all on board. A Warrant Officer Class II at the time of his death, aged 30, Alden Cottam is buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery in Germany (Plot 5, Row C, Grave 1).