John Howard (British Army officer)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people with the same name, see John Howard (disambiguation).

John Howard
Croix de Guerre avec Palme (France)
Signature

Major Reginald John Howard DSO (8 December 1912 – 5 May 1999)[1] was a British Army officer who led a glider-borne assault that captured the Caen canal and Orne river bridges on 6 June 1944, as part of the D-Day landings during the Second World War. These bridges spanned the Caen Canal and the adjacent River Orne (about 500 yards to the east), and were vitally important to the success of the D-Day landings. Since the war, the bridge over the canal has become known as "Pegasus Bridge," a tribute to the men who captured it. The bridge over the River Orne later became known as Horsa Bridge after the Horsa gliders that carried troops to the bridges.

Howard initially joined the British Army before the war, serving as a private soldier and then a non-commissioned officer for six years before discharging in 1938 and joining the Oxford City Police. In 1939 he was recalled to the army following the outbreak of the war and quickly rose through the ranks to become a regimental sergeant major in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. In 1940 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and eventually rose to be a major in 1942, at which time he took over command of 'D' Company, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Before D-Day, Howard's company was selected to carry out the assault on the Caen and Orne River bridges and he became personally responsible for their training and the planning of the assault. During D-Day he led the company in a successful coup-de-main assault that gained control of the bridges and then held them until relieved. After D-Day, Howard commanded his company until September 1944 when they were withdrawn from the line. Due to the injuries he sustained in a car accident in November 1944, he took no further part in the war and was eventually invalided out of the British Army in 1946. After this he became a public servant before he retired in 1974.

His role in the assault on the bridges was detailed in a number of books and films since the war, and after he retired he gave a number of lectures in Europe and the United States on tactics and on the assault itself. He died in 1999, at the age of 86.

Early life

Reginald John Howard was born on 8 December 1912 to Jack and Ethel Howard, who lived in London's West End.[2] The eldest of nine children, Howard's family background was working class. His father worked as a cooper for Courage Brewery after serving in the trenches in France during the First World War, while his mother kept the house and looked after the children.[2] During his formative years, Howard was an active member of the Boy Scouts, he also enjoyed attending school and did very well, earning a scholarship to attend secondary school. However, the economic situation at the time was hard and at the age of fourteen he began full-time work, working as a clerk at a broker's firm.[3] In order to further his education he took evening classes and continued with the Scouts. In 1931, however, he found himself out of work, after the brokerage firm that he was working for went out of business.[3]

In 1932, Howard enlisted into the British Army and undertook recruit training at Shrewsbury and was assigned to the King's Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI).[4] He excelled at physical training and did consistently well on army exams. He became a company clerk and later a physical training instructor. On the basis of his education he applied for a commission as an officer but was rejected, although he was promoted to corporal.[4]

In June 1938, he was discharged from the Army, having served his six-year enlistment period, and joined the Oxford City Police.[5] On 28 October 1939 he married Joy Bromley - whom he had met in 1936[6] - and with whom he would later have two children, Terry and Penny.[7]

On 2 December 1939, nearly three months since the outbreak of the

company commander of 'D' Company which he trained for the next two years.[9]

D-Day landings

Main article: Capture of the Caen canal and Orne river bridges

The Orne river formed the eastern, or left, flank of the Allied landings at Normandy on 6 June 1944.[10] Control of both bridges was vital because Allied forces needed the Orne as a geographic barrier against an immediate counter-attack against the allied flank by German forces, and because access to a lateral road would ensure supplies from Sword Beach to the 6th Airborne Division, which had been dropped to the east of Caen.[11] Supplies of ammunition, fuel and rations were essential if the 6th Airborne was to effectively protect the left flank of the Allied invasion force.[11] Furthermore, the crossings had to be held, undamaged, so as to serve as causeways from the beach landing areas, when the Allies moved forward.

Horsa gliders
can be seen where they landed next to it.

Howard led 'D' Company and an

Very pistol to try to warn soldiers on the Orne bridge a few hundred yards away, but by the time he fired, the other bridge had been overrun.[15] There was no time to attempt to blow the bridge,[13] and even if there had been, the explosives needed for the job had never been fitted to the bridge.[16] It was the classic example of a "commando-style" military operation, where surprise is the attacker's greatest asset; and when it is executed as planned, surprise is complete because the attackers in the event, face essentially no opposition.[17]
Virtually all of their casualties in the assault, are either from friendly fire, or accident.

At least two armed German halftracks belonging to an engineer company and followed by

British Commandos of the 1st Special Service Brigade, led by Brigadier Simon Fraser (Lord Lovat), marched to the bridge to the tune of Bill Millin's bagpipes.[20] With these reinforcements, they were able to hold Pegasus Bridge against an attack by elements of the 21st Panzer Division, strongly supported by artillery.[19]

Following the attack on the bridges on D-Day, instead of being removed from the line to commence training for further operations 'D' Company was used as a normal infantry company.

Bernard Montgomery,[22] although the award was not officially confirmed until 31 August.[23] 'D' Company remained in Normandy fighting until 5 September 1944, after 91 days of continuous fighting.[24]

Upon return to Bulford, Howard began to reform and reorganise his company in preparation for future operations.

Baltic sea.[28]

Later life

In 1946, despite wishing to continue serving, Howard was invalided out of the Army as a result of injuries that he received in the accident, and he went to work for the

Stephen Ambrose published a book on the assault on the bridges, called Pegasus Bridge.[12]

In 1974 Howard retired from the public service and he and his wife Joy moved to the village of Burcot, near Oxford.[7] Later he moved to an old country house in Surrey[33] and in 1986 his wife, Joy, died.[32] In his later life Howard returned to Normandy on 6 June every year to lay a wreath at the location where the gliders landed and was involved in the creation and maintenance of an airborne forces museum near the bridge.[32] He also lectured cadets in the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Sweden, the United States and many other NATO countries.[34] In the 1960s, Howard met and befriended Hans von Luck, a senior officer in the 21st Panzer Division who had been unable to assist in the defence of Pegasus Bridge on 6 June.[35]

Howard died on 5 May 1999, at the age of 86.[32] The new Memorial Pegasus museum was opened by the Prince of Wales on 4 June 2000.[36] In 2006, his daughter, Penny, published Howard's private papers, titled Pegasus Diaries.[Note 4]

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Only about half of the original men of the battalion made the transition; their places were filled by volunteers from other units of the Army.
  2. ^ Double British Summertime = 23:16 local time.
  3. ^ According to Ambrose a German tank was destroyed but British eyewitness reports from 6 June daytime as well as Sergeant Thornton's Military Medal citation refer to it as an armoured carrier, most likely a halftrack armed with cannon; note by drs. Carles Wolterman, Amstelveen, the Netherlands
  4. ^ See "Further reading" section for the full bibliographic details of these works.

Citations

  1. ^ Bellamy, Christopher (7 May 1999). "Major John Howard His longest D-day secured the allied advance into Normandy". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  2. ^ a b Ambrose 1985, pp. 21–22.
  3. ^ a b Ambrose 1985, p. 22.
  4. ^ a b Ambrose 1985, p. 23.
  5. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 24.
  6. ^ a b c d Ambrose 1985, p. 25.
  7. ^ a b Ambrose 1985, p. 193.
  8. ^ "No. 35008". The London Gazette (Supplement). 3 December 1940. pp. 6924–6925.
  9. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 27.
  10. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 40.
  11. ^ a b Ambrose 1985, p. 52.
  12. ^ a b Ambrose 1985.
  13. ^ a b c Ambrose 1985, pp. 96–113.
  14. ^ Private Bill Gray, quoted in Ryan 1959, p. 109
  15. ^ Ryan 1959, pp. 109–110
  16. ^ Ryan 1959, p. 110
  17. ^ Gal Perl Finkel, 75 years from that long day in Normandy – we still have something to learn, The Jerusalem Post, 12 June 2019.
  18. ^ Ambrose 1985, pp. 129–130.
  19. ^ a b Ambrose 1985, pp. 164–168.
  20. ^ Ryan 1959, p. 292
  21. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 172.
  22. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 182.
  23. ^ "No. 36679". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 August 1944. p. 4044.
  24. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 186.
  25. ^ Ambrose 1985, pp. 190–192.
  26. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 190.
  27. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 191.
  28. ^ Ambrose 1985, pp. 191–192.
  29. ^ Ambrose 1985, pp. 191–193.
  30. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 192.
  31. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 105.
  32. ^ a b c d "Major John Howard, DSO, Obituary". The Times, 7 May 1999. Archived from the original on 4 July 2008. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
  33. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 207.
  34. ^ Ambrose 1985, p. 208.
  35. ^ Von Luck 1989, p. 331
  36. ^ Mémorial Pegasus. "Pegasus Memorial Bridge". Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 5 June 2009.

35. Pegasus Diaries John Howard and Penny Bates (2006) page 129.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Howard_(British_Army_officer)&oldid=1219210059"