John Howard (soldier)
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Major John Howard DSO (1912-1999) was a British Army officer who led the World War II assault on "Pegasus", a vital bridge over the Caen Canal of the River Orne.
[edit] D-Day landings
The Orne formed the Eastern flank of the Allied landings at Normandy during World War II on June 6, 1944. Control of the bridge was vital because Allied forces needed a geographic barrier against a counter attack 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. Supplies of ammunition, fuel and rations were essential if the 6th Airborne was to be effective at protecting the left flank of the Allied invasion force.
Major John Howard led the glider-landed D Company, 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Ox & Bucks) in an airborne assault in the early hours of June 6, 1944. Released at 8,000 feet over the Normandy coast, three gliders, each carrying 28 heavily armed troops, clipped the tops of a group of poplars skirting a field and bounced to a halt only a few yards from each other, at precisely 0016 hours. Although shaken by the impact, the glider troops poured out of the aircraft wreckage and, with Howard at their head, rushed and took the bridge. The Orne bridge to the east had also been secured, even though one glider involved in that assault had gone astray. The German counter-attack came at 0210 hours when German divisional headquarters realised the bridges had been taken. By that time, Howard and his glider troops had been reinforced from fresh airborne parachute landings and were able to hold Pegasus Bridge against an attack by elements of the 21st Panzer Division, strongly supported by artillery.
[edit] Later life
Howard, whose experiences on D-Day were re-enacted by actor Richard Todd in the film The Longest Day, was awarded the DSO and the Croix de Guerre avec Palme for his leadership. In 1946, he was invalided out of the Army, and later worked for the Ministry of Agriculture, retiring in the 1970s. Howard returned to Normandy every June 6 to lay a wreath on the spot where the gliders landed and was involved in the creation and maintenance of an airborne forces museum near the bridge. A new memorial museum was scheduled to open on June 6, 2000.
