For the longest time few knew the story behind Henry Howard other than he was a quiet, unassuming elderly veteran who attended the local legion every Friday for fish and chips.
But then word got out earlier this year that Howard was soon to celebrate his 100th birthday on June 15. For Arno Glover, the manager at the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion, he had to find out more.
“Many members of the branch told me that he was a Second World War veteran but other than that specific details were sketchy,” said Glover, who assisted family members with the special birthday party for Howard at the legion on June 12.
What his research uncovered is a story of remarkable strength and courage about a humble man who quietly prepared himself for the ultimate sacrifice during one of the most important days in modern history.
Howard was a tank gunner and radio operator for B squadron of the 10th Armoured Regiment (The Fort Garry Horse), a unit assigned to storm Juno Beach at Normandy on D-Day - June 6, 1944. Before last week, he never told his story, not even to family members.
“It doesn't bother me very much anymore. It used to. You try to forget these things. Most of the time we never talked about it, as you probably know,” said Howard, glancing at his devoted niece Vera Darrah.
“I know this is the first time I even heard of it,” Darrah quickly countered.
Howard, whose family roots in the Innisfail area go back to the 1890s, was a member of B Squadron of the 10th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Fort Garry Horse), a unit based in Winnipeg. On D-Day, his tank squadron was tasked to land at “Nan White” beach near Berničres in support of the Queen's Own Rifles.
“You look back over the ocean and all you can see is ships all over the place. That is all you could see when the daylight comes, no matter what direction you look,” said Howard, of his unit's perilous D-Day journey to Juno Beach. “At times you were awfully scared but you had a job to do and you did it.
“As soon as you hit the beach it was, ‘get off, get going, get the heck out of here,'” said Howard, recalling the enemy fire going on all around him. “We had to get inland. We had to get the hell off the beach, to get going to make room for somebody else. There was so much coming in we had to get moving as fast as we could.”
Howard's crew, one of the first tank units to land on Juno Beach, safely made it through the increasing German resistance and gunfire.
The 14,000 Canadian soldiers who landed at Normandy that day made the farthest advance inland of all Allied troops. Howard said fighting would get heavier in France during the ensuing days, weeks and months, noting his tank was actually knocked out just a few days after landing on the beach.
“We did not have too much fire the first day but we got quite a bit on the second day,” he said. “A track was blown out. Luckily nobody got hurt. We managed to get out of there. I spent that night in a foxhole. The next night we got picked up and sent back for reinforcements.”
His crew was assigned to another battle, and would be in full service until the end of the war 11 months later.
Howard, who rose to the rank of army corporal, never sustained any war injuries. He ended his military service in February 1946 and went home. He married Doreen Hepburn and bought a half section of land for mixed farming about 40 kilometres southeast of Innisfail, not far from where his father had his operation. The couple did not have children. Howard retired from farming in 1973, and moved to Red Deer, but came back to Innisfail in 1983. His wife passed away in 1999. Howard now lives independently alone in his Innisfail condo. He leads a quiet and modest life and does his best not to miss his fish and chips every Friday at the legion.
As for turning 100, Howard insists he has not given it special thought.
“Not really. I live one day at a time. You do the best you can. Sometimes it's not very good but you do the very best,” he said, adding the full story about his Second World War service is something few could really understand. “Nobody who has never been there can understand what war is like.”
Henry Howard
"As soon as you hit the beach it was, 'get off, get going, get the heck out of here.' We had to get inland. We had to get the hell off the beach, to get going to make room for somebody else."
