Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas – ‘Bravest of brave’ war hero honoured
Blue plaque for the decorated secret agent who escaped from Nazi death camp
Published: 8 April 2010
by DAN CARRIER
FOR the neighbours who lived near him in Bloomsbury, nothing could have told them that the quietly spoken RAF officer was one of Britain’s bravest secret agents.
But now the terraced Georgian home of the man whose wartime escapades would not look out of place in a James Bond movie script, is publicly declaring its presence – by being honoured with a Blue Plaque.
Wing Commander Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas, who won the George Cross, Military Cross and was honoured by both the Polish and French governments, cheated death many times fighting in two world wars. Now he is the first member of the Secret Service to have earned one of English Heritage’s prestigious plaques.
It was unveiled last Wednesday by his niece Carol Green, and those present, including members of his old squadron based at RAF Lyneham, heard biographer Mark Seaman speak of the extraordinary life the most decorated officer in the RAF led.
Mr Seaman said: “His story is more extraordinary than any fiction dreamed up by a novelist or filmed by Hollywood. He really was the bravest of the brave.”
As an airman in the First World War, Yeo-Thomas was captured by Russian troops and in order to escape he strangled a prison guard. He spent much of the Second World War in occupied mainland Europe, joining the Special Operations Executive in 1941.
Yeo-Thomas returned to France many times during the war, helping organise vital supplies to the Resistance.
But he was betrayed to the Gestapo in 1944 and was tortured at the notorious Buchenwald camp. He escaped, and made his way back to Allied lines.
Yeo-Thomas returned home to the wartime flat of his fiancee, Barbara Dean, in Queen Court, Guilford Street. He then married her.
And when peace was declared his intelligence helped bring a number of Nazi war criminals to trial. He later worked in France for a Parisian fashion house before taking on a role as a representative of the Federation of British Industries, until he died in 1964.