The Association has learned of the death of Captain Charles Vyvyan Howard DSC RN on 14 September 2022.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62924112
Captain Charles Vyvyan Howard R.N., D.S.C.
Vyvyan Howard, who has died aged 102, was a Royal Navy officer and a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm. He was probably the last Fairey Swordfish pilot living and the last remaining British survivor of the Stalag Luft III POW camp.
As WW2 loomed he enlisted in the Royal Navy and trained as a pilot. He joined No 828 squadron and in June 1941 was deployed to the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious. Howard flew on the ill-fated Kirkenes raid in the north of Norway, where he was shot down and taken prisoner.
Howard remained a prisoner in Stalag Luft III for 2 ½ years. During this time he assisted with both the ‘Wooden Horse’ escape and the ‘Great Escape’. In January 1945 the camp was marched westward in front of the advancing Russian army in what became known as the ‘Long March’. After 4 months of marching in harsh winter conditions they were liberated on 2nd May 1945 near Lubeck, by the British Army.
After the war Howard accepted a permanent commission in the RN and served in the Fleet Air Arm. He was Commanding Officer of 830 Naval Air Squadron flying Westland Wyverns off HMS Eagle in Operation Musketeer during the Suez Crisis in 1956. 830 NAS mounted the first attack on 1st November 1956 and had flown many sorties by 6th November when the action ceased. Howard was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for gallantry as a result.
Charles Vyvyan Howard was born on 11 November 1919 at Hartlepool. He lived in Greatham, where his father was Headmaster of the local primary school. In January 1940 he won a scholarship to The Henry Smith Grammar School. He matriculated and in 1937 he took up a position as an Assistant at the Research Laboratories at ICI Billingham. When it was apparent that a war was on the horizon, Howard’s father advised him to join the Royal Navy and to train as a pilot. His training was at Elmdon, Birmingham. One weekend he went on a “jolly” to Blackpool where he met his future wife, Bernadette Taylor.
Howard moved to RAF Netheravon on Salisbury Plain for advanced training and gained his pilot’s wings in May 1940. In September 1940 he joined the operational squadron No 828, flying Albacores, at Lee-on-Solent and in 1941 he was deployed to the Orkney Islands on convoy patrol and anti-aircraft duties. In June of that year he joined the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious. On a fateful flying mission from that carrier on the night of 30 July 1941 Howard was shot down into the fjord at Kirkenes in northern Norway close to the Russian border. He described this incident on a visit to RNAS Culdrose some eight years ago;
“We launched our torpedo at a German ship in the harbour. As we turned to make our escape I heard a roar of cannon fire from below us; we were hit and the aircraft broke up around us. The next thing I knew we were in the fjord and swimming to the shore and captivity.”
Thirteen were killed on the raid and twenty-five captured; sixteen aircraft were destroyed. Howard became a German prisoner of war for 3 1/2 years. After being held in two small POW camps he was transferred to Stalag Luft III in June 1942. This camp was immortalised in the films “The Wooden Horse” (1950) and “The Great Escape” (1963). Howard was involved in aiding both escapes. He spent many an hour vaulting over the horse, while his role in The Great Escape was to distract the guards, since he could speak German. The entrance to the tunnel called ‘Tom’ was in Howard’s hut. This was discovered by the German guards. The tunnel called ‘Dick’ ran directly under his hut. During his captivity he learned how to speak Polish and after the War he became a Polish interpreter for the Royal Navy. Howard’s facility in the German language led to him attending meetings as interpreter between Senior Allied Officers and Oberst von Lindeiner, the Camp Commandant.
Howard had to endure the Long March from January 1945 when POWs were marched on foot away from the advancing Russian front. He recounted later that he owed his life to a Polish compatriot who gave him the advice ‘don’t ever take your boots off, only loosen them, or you will never get them on again because your feet will swell’. After three months of a very harsh winter Howard arrived at Wulmenau, near Lubeck, where he sent Bernadette the following letter:
. . . “A couple of British tanks caught us today, 2 May at 11.40 hrs and the infantry should be here this afternoon. Oh ye Gods, what a day of joy and rejoicing – cheers and wild waving – all of us, English, American, Polish, Russian, Dutch, French – everybody shouting to the stormy sky . . ..”
Vyvyan sent his sweetheart a telegram on 10 May 1945: “Home today. Be seeing you soon.” They were married on 2 June 1945.
At the end of the War Howard was offered a permanent commission by the FAA, which he accepted. In 1949 Howard found himself at RNAS Culdrose where he flew Seafires and Sea Furies in addition to Sea Vampires and Meteors in the new jet age.
Howard stayed in Cornwall for the next six years raising a family and working on various training squadrons before taking command of 830 Naval Air Squadron flying the Westland Wyvern, the largest prop-driven single-seat airplane to operate from a Royal Navy carrier. 830 NAS was commissioned at RNAS Ford in Sussex and embarked on HMS Eagle in April 1956. The squadron’s 16 aircraft became the only Wyverns to see combat when they participated in Operation Musketeer, the Anglo-French intervention in The Suez War of 1956. 830 NAS mounted the first attack on 1st November 1956 attacking Egyptian airfields near the Suez Canal. He had flown many sorties by 6 November when the operation was called off. Two Wyverns were lost; at least one to ground fire.
Howard was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) given in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Operations in the Near East from October to December 1956. He had memories of how congested the airspace was over Suez:
“It was a very small area to operate and after a few days we were competing for the same targets with the other aircraft from the British and French carriers. It was like Piccadilly Circus. We often went against the Egyptian Air Force with their MIG jets. It was an exciting time.”
In 1960 Howard returned to RNAS Culdrose and took a helicopter acquaintance course before taking up a new job as the Fleet Aviation Officer on the Far East Staff in Singapore. He then spent two years on the Defence Policy Staff in Whitehall. His last appointment before retiring from the Royal Navy, as a Captain after over 36 years’ service, was as British Naval Attaché in Bonn, Germany.
After retirement from the RN he spent 10 years working at Halcrow Engineering before finally retiring fully to his home in Mollington, Oxfordshire.
In 1945 Vyvyan Howard married Bernadette Taylor. She predeceased him. He is survived by a son and two daughters, 10 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.
Charles Vyvyan Howard, born November 11 1919, died September 14 2022