| F/Sgt Harold Yerdon was
serving as an Air Gunner on board Lancaster Mk. X KB-813 coded SE-S
during a cross country training flight on October 25, 1944 in
preparation for the squadron conversion from Halifaxes to Lancasters. The aircraft
inexplicably
crashed 11 miles
southwest
of Bedford near Tingrith
killing all on board. The other
crewmembers were:
|
Name |
Service |
Service |
Age |
Hometown |
|
P/O Gordon Wrigley |
RCAF |
Pilot |
21 |
Hawkstone,ON |
|
P/O James Schwerdfager |
RCAF |
Bomb Aimer |
20 |
Ottawa, ON |
|
P/O Robert Gillis |
RCAF |
Navigator |
22 |
Halifax, NS |
|
F/Sgt Harvey Irwin |
RCAF |
Wireless Air Gunner |
20 |
Barrie, ON |
|
F/Sgt Alan Malaidack |
RCAF |
Air Gunner |
21 |
Halifax, NS |
|
Sgt Frederick Smith |
RAFVR |
F/E |
21 |
Lincoln |
F/Sgt
Harold Robert Joseph Yerdon was born on the 30th April
1925 and was the foster son of Joseph
and
Pearl
Yerdon of
Brockville,
Ontario. His foster parents changed his name from Robert Harold to
Harold Robert Joseph,
his
peacetime job is listed as a Metal Founder.
 |
|
Harold Yerdon
with bride Mildred Cotter |
On
7th October 1944,just eighteen day’s before Harold was
to lose his life, he married Mildred Cotter, a clerk at the
Admiralty Stores, who was eighteen.
Mildred lived at 141 Haywood Road,
Accrington,
Lancashire and the witnesses were Phyllis Woods, her cousin and
Flight Sergeant James Elliot Schwerdfager,
the Bomb Aimer in the crew.
 |
|
Harold
and Mildred with
some of the crew. |
Flight
Sergeant Yerdon rests in the town cemetery of his wife’s home town
of Accrington,
he
is also remembered on the Roll of Honour for Brockville Collegiate
Institute & Vocational School, Ontario.
The
other five
Canadian crew members rest in Brookwood Military Cemetery,
Sergeant Smith
(RAFVR)
is buried in Newport Cemetery.
Wireless Operator Sgt Harvey Irwin RCAF is remembered on the
Veterans Affairs of Canada, under
Eastview
Secondary School in a special tribute written by his
great-nephew-Jordan Mosley. |
