Yellin, Jerome “Jerry”, born 15-02-1924, in Newark, New Jersey, 
United States, the son of a real estate developer, Simon Albert Yellin – 5/15/1897 – 3/ /1969 and his wife Lillian, born Davidson, Yellin – 6/15/1901 – 9/30/1986. His family was Jewish. After graduating from high school in Hillside, New Jersey, 
“Jerry” worked night shift at a steel mill, saving money before starting college.
On 07-12-1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. 
Two months later, on his 18th birthday, Yellin enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces 
Yellin started his aviation training at Thunderbird Field II in Scottsdale, Arizona and later graduated from Luke Field, Arizona as a fighter pilot in August 1943. Flying P-40 
and P 47 Thunderbolt fighter 
planes, his training continued based out of Hawaii. On March 10-03-1944, 15 miles off the coast of Haleiwa, Oahu, Yellin parachuted out of his P-40 at 5,000 feet after the engine failed and he spent 9 hours in a life raft before being rescued. He was assigned to the 78th Fighter Squadron, 
15th Fighter Group. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
met with General Douglas MacArthur 
in Hawaii in July 1944 and Yellin was chosen by his commanding officer, Jim “Jim” Buckley Tapp, 
to fly with him in an aerial show for the President. On 07-03-1945 he landed his P-51 
on Iwo Jima after the first of three airfields was secured. For the remainder of the battle for the island, Yellin flew strafing and bombing combat missions in support of the Marines who were fighting the well-entrenched Japanese soldiers. Additionally, he led his squadron on combat missions against Japanese forces on the nearby island of Chichijima. On 07-04-1945, he participated in the first land based fighter mission over Japan. In all, Yellin flew 19 dangerous very long range (VLR) missions from Iwo Jima attacking the Japanese mainland and providing air cover to B-29s on bombing missions. He was co-credited with shooting down a Mitsubishi A6M Zero, 
along with his wingman, 2nd Lieutenant Daniel Tucker Mathis, 
with probably destroying another Zero, and with damaging an Aichi E13A (Jake). 
He was an exceptional pilot[, who flew over one thousand hours of missions in various aircraft. Yellin was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with an Oak Leaf cluster 
and the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf clusters. 
Yellin’s final combat mission was executed five days after the U.S. Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar 
had dropped a second American nuclear weapon on Japan, on the city of Nagasaki. 
Yellin flew along with another pilot, First Lieutenant Felix Phillip Schlamberg, 
who was piloting a second P-51 as Yellin’s wingman. The two men were executing their mission against the airfield at or about the time that Emperor Shöwa Hirohito 
announced Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, wherein Japan would accept allied terms for unconditional surrender. Yellin and Schlamberg did not hear the military’s attempted radio broadcast alerting them that the war had ended.
Immediately after carrying out their mission against the airfield, Yellin and Schlamberg banked steeply into a cloud cover. Yellin emerged from the cloud cover, but Schlamberg had disappeared, apparently shot down, and became the final known combat death of World War II. Schlamberg’s body was never recovered. Short on fuel, Yellin began his four-hour flight back to his home base on Iwo Jima, where he learned that the war had ended.
Actually, other missions returned the day after Yellin’s including a B-29 bomb wing based in the Marianas, the combined US and British Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers, and Japanese interceptions of B-32 Dominator reconnaissance aircraft over Japan up to the 17th. However, Yellin’s mission may have been the last flown by VII Fighter Command from Iwo Jima, and the last mission of the war itself.
Yellin married Helene Schulman 
in 1949 and the couple were together for 66 years. Helene Yellin died in 2015. Helene had many dear friends in Fairfield and was missed by all. She loved the ocean, visiting her family in Japan and the peace and serenity of life in Fairfield. They had four sons, David Yellin, Steven Yellin, Michael Yellin, and Robert Yellin, and six grandchildren. Three of the grandchildren live in Japan and three live in the United States
Death and burial ground of Yellin, Jerome “Jerry”.
Yellin was an amateur golf champion in New Jersey and was on the United States golf team in the 1965 Maccabiah Games in Israel, winning a silver medal. In the 1960s and 1970s, while living in Florida with his family he was a well known tennis umpire. He was a chair umpire for World Championship Tennis matches played in Hollywood and Aventura, as well as at the WCT finals in Dallas. Jerry also was an umpire at the 1969 US Open.
Yellin died from lung cancer at the home of his son Steven in Orlando, Florida, on 21-12-2017, at the age of 93. His remains were interred with full military honors, including a flyover by A-10 Warthog fighter jets and a P-51 leading the missing man formation, at Arlington National Cemetery, Columbarium Court 9, Section N11, Column 8, Niche 3, on 15-01-2019
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