John Howard (British Army Officer) - Later Life

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 Ministry of Agriculture. In 1954 he was awarded the Croix de Guerre avec Palme by the French government. On 6 June 1959, Cornelius Ryan published The Longest Day, in which 'D' Company's assault on the bridges was detailed. In 1962, Howard's experiences on D-Day were re-enacted by actor Richard Todd—who had himself participated in D-Day, serving in the 7th Parachute Battalion, sent to reinforce Howard's coup-de-main party—in the film The Longest Day, which was largely based on Ryan's book, although it was a dramatised account. In 1985, Stephen Ambrose published a book on the assault on the bridges, called Pegasus Bridge.

In 1974 Howard retired from the public service and he and his wife Joy moved to the village of Burcot, near Oxford. Later he moved to an old country house in Surrey and in 1986 his wife, Joy, died. Nevertheless, in his later life Howard returned to Normandy 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. He also lectured cadets in the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Sweden, the United States and many other NATO countries. 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.

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