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He was a bugler, a gunner and one of the first men to have plastic surgery.

In 1916, Walter Yeo was HMS Warspite’s Gunner 2296.

A year later he became patient 364 when he began treatment with the experimental plastic surgeon; Dr Harold Gillies.

Yeo’s face was burned by cordite during the battle of Jutland. His facial injuries caused the loss of his eyelids and severe scarring.

Gillies, a pioneer of modern facial reconstructive surgery, undertook a series of operations to replace the upper part of Yeo’s face. His case notes, held by the Royal College of Surgeons, and published in Plastic Surgery of the Face (1920), detail the radical procedure and Yeo’s progress through it.

After a year of treatment at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, Walter Yeo was passed medically fit for naval service. He was still receiving treatment at Plymouth’s Royal Naval Hospital in 1938.

Born into a naval family, Yeo enlisted aged 12. After the war, he became a Devonport publican. His family history is recorded by the Yeo Society and Walter’s life story is now the inspiration for the visual artist Paddy Hartley.

Location: Fore Street, Devonport, Devon PL1 4DW
Image shows HMS Warspite, of which Walter Yeo was a gunner
Photograph courtesy of Imperial War Museums
Presented by Jo Loosemoore

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