Harry Yielding was born in Paddington in London on 1 December 1911, the son of Sidney Yielding and May Lucy Yielding (née Childs). When the 1939 Register was compiled, Harry was listed as a paint grinder/dope grinder. He was living with his family at 79, Purves Avenue, Willesden and had one older brother and three younger sisters.

On 21 September 1940 he was married to Miss Florence Margaret Churchill in the Registry Office in Willesden and, at that time, he gave his occupation as paint sprayer. In 1939 Florence had been living at home at 13, Behrens Road, Hammersmith and was a typist with an instruments company. Margaret Yielding is reported to have died in the Swindon, Wiltshire, area in the first quarter of 1941, aged twenty seven, although the circumstances of her death are not known.

It is understood that Harry Yielding then joined the Royal Navy and, by June 1944, he was an Able Seaman serving in HMS SICKLE. On 4 June 1944, SICKLE took part in a surface gun action in the Mediterranean in which two crewmen were wounded and one (AB Blake) was lost overboard. AB Blake was rescued by German forces and, accidentally and very luckily, became the only survivor of HMS SICKLE.

The submarine was lost with all hands, including Harry Yielding, about two weeks later probably by striking a mine in the Antikithera Channel, Greece, on or around 18 June 1944. Harry Yielding (known as ‘Chock’) is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial on Panel 76, Column 2.