Major john howard biography

British Army officer (1912–1999)

For other people with the same name, see John Howard (disambiguation).

MajorReginald John HowardDSO (8 December 1912 – 5 May 1999)^[1] was a British Armyofficer 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 Ci