“The Glorious Dam Buster,”

Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C.

Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson, V.C, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar (12 August 1918 – 19 September 1944) was a distinguished bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He was appointed the first Commanding Officer of No 617 Squadron, specifically to undertake an operation  to breach the Ruhr Dams using Barnes Wallis’ Upkeep weapon – the  “Bouncing Bomb”. After intensive training the Mohne and Eder dams were  breached on the night of 16/17 May 1943, in a spectacular low-level  operation resulting in the loss of 8 of the 19 participating aircraft.

His connection to The Glamorganshire Golf Club happened when the young Flying Officer with Number 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, took leave on 1 December to visit his older brother, Alexander, in Coventry. At the same time a young lady called Eve Moore had secured a modest part in the chorus in a revue called “ Come out to Play” which had started in London and by the time it reached the New Hippodrome in Coventry it had run for 8 months. . One night Eve noticed a young RAF officer staring at her from the front row of the stalls. On the next evening, he was there again on the following day. On the fourth day Guy decided to introduce himself by sending a message asking Eve to meet him after the show which she agreed to do.

Evelyn (Eve) Mary Moore was from Penarth and was the fourth child of Ernest Edward Moore who was a member of The Glamorganshire Golf Club and lived at was 25 Cwrt-y-Vil Road, known as “Calshot”. It still retains the same name in gold lettering above the front door. He was a double Captain of the Club.

Ernest Moore outside the clubhouse.

Guy was smitten by Eve and in the words of a friend: “Guy adored Eve and couldn’t get enough of her.” Three days after parting company in Coventry Guy volunteered to fly a Hampden down to a maintenance unit at St Athan for the fitting of transmitters. After arriving he turned up unannounced at 21 Archer Road where Eve had returned for the Christmas break. It was Guy’s first meeting with Eve’s family.

On 22 December he seized a further opportunity to visit Eve by ferrying another Hampden to St Athan.

For the next year Guy pursued Eve all over the country where she was performing on stage. This despite his involvement in fighting and bombing operations becoming more intense. On 9 July 1940 he was awarded the first of his wartime decorations, a Distinguished Flying Cross. On 3 September he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and later that month left 83 Squadron and posted off operations. He was then posted to an Operational Training Unit at Cottesmore before moving to another OTU at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. It was while he was based in the latter that he “popped the question” to Eve while making their way back to 21 Archer Road one evening in October.

All Saints Church, Penarth

The wedding was arranged for a month later on Saturday, 23 November, at All Saints Church in Penarth where Eve had been baptised as an infant. Ten days prior to the wedding Guy was posted to 29 Squadron at Digby, Lincolnshire, for night-fighter flying duties. At the time of Guy’s arrival, 29 Squadron was operating Bristol Blenheim’s. Taking full advantage of now being a squadron leader, Guy, accompanied by Pilot Officer Lovell, flew one of the Blenheim’s on 21 November and landed at RAF Peng am Moors on the eastern edge of Cardiff. Although it’s not recorded where he stayed in advance of his wedding, the following day his future father-in-law invited Guy to lunch at the Cardiff & County Club. He was signed in as “Flt. Lieut G. Gibson DFC RAF – Lincoln” by “E. E. Moore.”

The wedding itself, the following day, unlike many wartime weddings, was quite an elaborate one. All Saints Church, where the ceremony took place, was just two hundred yards from the Moore’s home. Apart from Guy being in uniform the male members of Eve’s family wore morning suits. Eve dressed in a wedding gown of ivory velvet and carried a bouquet of red roses. The reception was held at the legendary Esplanade Hotel on the Penarth waterfront esplanade. The honeymoon was spent in a hotel on the outskirts of Chepstow, overlooking the Severn Estuary. As Guy and Eve sat down for supper on 24 May they witnessed the first night of the Bristol Blitz, a sure sign for Guy to return to RAF Digby ASAP with his new bride.

Meanwhile intermittent bombing raids took place over Penarth and on the night of the 4/5 March 1941 All Saints Church was almost completely destroyed. The church had to be rebuilt and didn’t reopen until 14 September 1954. The Esplanade Hotel, which had become The Barbarian F.C.’s home base for their annual Easter tours to South Wales, was also subsequently destroyed. On 29 May 1977 it burnt down. Fire officers discovered three different seats of fire. The owner suspected arson but there was no prosecution. Unlike All Saints it was never rebuilt.

In 1942 Guy received a summons from HQ 5 Group in Grantham for a meeting with Air Vice-Marshall Ralph Cochrane. It resulted in Guy being requested to lead a new squadron, 617, to carry out a top-secret mission (Operation Chastise) to destroy three dams in the heart of industrial Germany – the Mohne in the Ruhr Valley, the Edersee in the Eder Valley and the Sorpe. The Dambuster Raid took place on 16/17 May and resulted in major breaches of the Möhne and the Eder. Only eleven of the nineteen Lancaster bombers returned, and 54 members of the crews perished. Approximately 1,500 civilians/prisoners died in the resultant flooding with power stations, factories and homes destroyed.

Guy returned to R.A.F. Scampton unscathed and was soon lauded as a national hero. In the closing scene of the 1955 “Dambusters” film, starring Richard Todd, Guy is seen telling Barnes Wallis that he was going to write condolence letters to the families of those who had filed to return. Once those letters were completed Guy travelled to Penarth on Friday, 21 May, for a weekend stay at 21 Archer Road. The following day he went for lunch with his father-in-law at the Cardiff & County Club.

The following morning Guy received a telephone call at 21 Archer Road, from Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, head of Bomber Command, informing him that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Although it doesn’t appear in either of the biographies of Guy or in Max Hasting’s book, Eve’s older sister, Louisa, recalled to a local paper the telephone call and her father telephoning The Glamorganshire Golf Club and asking them to lay on the drinks. “The whole family went there to celebrate that evening.” Guy unsurprisingly was an honorary member of that club; a privilege extended to all serving officers in the armed forces during the War and his name appears on the memorial board for the fallen in the club.

Guy and Eve at Buckingham Palace

On 22 June Eve accompanied Guy to Buckingham Palace to receive, from the Queen, a bar to his DSO and the Victoria Cross. The King was otherwise engaged on a visit to troops in North Africa. At the age of just 24 Guy had become the most highly decorated man of the entire War.

At the end of July Guy and Eve were invited to spend the day with Winston Churchill at Chequers. Before the couple left, Churchill hinted that he had plans to extend Guy’s public relations role to include a trip overseas.
It must have been another welcome break for Guy and Eve to return to Penarth for a week’s break at the end of February. Guy was anxious to play a few rounds of golf with his father-in-law at The Glamorganshire Golf Club, just a mile away from 21 Archer Road. One thing is very certain. On 1, and again on 8 March, Guy accompanied Ernest into the Cardiff & County Club for lunch. He’s signed in on both occasions as “Wing C Guy Gibson V.C. – London.” By now he was instantly recognisable and no doubt the privacy of the club surroundings must have been a godsend to this superstar. It would be the last time he attended the club and visited Penarth.

In September Guy persuaded Bomber Harris to allow him to return to operational duties. Harris agreed to allow him to make one more trip which should be as close as possible to Allied lines. The raid on Rheydt and Munchen Gladbach was the one chosen and he was to function as master bomber or controller. The raid took place on the night of 19 September. Guy, who was piloting a Mosquito, never returned from the mission. His plane crashed to the ground at Steenbergen in Holland on the return flight. There was little left of either the plane or the two occupants, Guy and his navigator, James Warwick. The only clue left to the identity of Guy was a sock with a label bearing his name. Their remains were buried in the local Roman Catholic Cemetery.

Although Eve had been advised by telegram on 20 September that Guy was missing there was no public announcement until over two months later.

Guy Gibson Grave

Eve remarried in 1948 to Jack Hyman, a fruit exporter, and went to reside in South Africa. Ernest died a year later. By 1954 Eve’s marriage had failed and she returned to live in London. Her mother died the same year. She also reverted to her surname of Gibson. The following year she attended the Royal Premier showing of “The Dambusters” film and introduced to Princess Margaret. She continued to take a variety of jobs and finished her working life as assistant housekeeper at Claridge’s. On 25 October 1988 she died after a battle with cancer. To most people she remained, as she wanted to be, Guy’s widow.