Banco de dados da Segunda Guerra Mundial (WW2DB)

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseYuen Hop was born to Chinese immigrants Gin and Chan Hop in Sebastopol, California, United States in 1924. He graduated from Analy High School in Sebastopol. In Oct 1943, he enlisted in the US Army and completed Air Service Command Station orientation courses in England, United Kingdom. Returning to the United States, he was assigned to the USAAF. His unit arrived in Europe in Sep 1944. In 1944, he was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant. On 29 Dec 1944, he took flight with a B-17G Flying Fortress bomber as a gunner. Shortly after the aircraft had dropped its bomb load on its target along the Rhine River, the aircraft was hit twice by German anti-aircraft fire, and the entire crew escaped by parachute near Bingen am Rhein in southwestern Germany. Five became captured, three became missing, and one was killed in the woods near Oesterich, Germany. Hop was among the three who were missing. In 2013, American and German researchers recovered documents from the state archives at Koblenz, Germany, which contained information on the war crimes trial against Otto Dümpelmann, a kapo who worked for the German SS organization, who had murdered three captured US airmen in the area in Dec 1944. Court documents noted that the victims' remains were buried in unmarked graves in a cemetery near Kamp-Bornhofen. Between 2021 and 2022, a suspected burial site was investigated, and in Jun 2024 the United States Department of Defense announced that remains of Hop had been identified by DNA analysis. His remains were returned to California in Jan 2025. He was buried with full military honors at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

Yuen Hop Mapa Interativo

Photographs

Yuen Hop Timeline