Sergeant Jean (John) F Huard

Johnson (Jean Ferdinand) Huard was born on the 12 January 1918.

He enlisted into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps on the 23 October 1941, and later transferred to the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers. [1]

In 1943 he volunteered for Airborne Forces and transferred to The Glider Pilot Regiment. By 1944 he had completed all his flying and glider training and was qualified as a 2nd Pilot on Hamilcar gliders. He was assigned to C Squadron and based at RAF Tarrant Rushton, Dorset.

On the 6 June 1944, he took part in Operation ‘Mallard’, which was the reinforcement lift to Normandy, in support of the 6th Airborne Division, flying with S/Sgt. Robert Samuel Tilling as 1st Pilot, they successfully delivered men and equipment of the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment to LZ N near Ranville, and were evacuated back to England the next day.

On Monday, 18 September 1944, Sgt. Huard took off from RAF Tarrant Rushton.

He was the 2nd Pilot in a Hamilcar on the 2nd Lift, C/N: 915, again with the 1st Pilot being S/Sgt. Robert Samuel Tilling. They were carrying bulk loaded stores of extra ammunition, supplies & equipment and men of the 250th Airborne Light Composite Company, RASC to L.Z. X near Renkum in Holland, as part of Operation ‘Market-Garden’.

He was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans during the battle and taken to Enschede, about 50 miles North-east of Arnhem, and close to the German border.

The son of John and Elsie Huard, of Wembley Park, Middlesex (and the husband of Ellen Huard), he died of his wounds on the 4th October 1944, aged 26, in the Roman Catholic Hospital at Enschede, and was buried in the Eastern General Cemetery in grave 194.

NOTES:

[1] The Parachute Regiment, Transfer & Enlistment Book 15, page 58.