On Friday, November 13, Howard decided to spend the night with Joy, as Oxford was on the route to Birmingham. He brought with him two Oxford residents. Corporal Stock and his new second-in-command. Captain Osborne, together with his batman. Although Stock was his driver, Howard insisted on taking the wheel, because, although a good driver, Stock did not drive fast enough.
At about 5:30, just as dusk was falling, they met a Yank convoy of six-ton trucks on a narrow, twisting road. They were on a right hand bend. Suddenly, with no warning, Howard ‘saw this six-ton truck in front of me. He’d lost his place in the convoy and he was obviously leap-frogging up, and it was all over so quickly.’
They had a head-on crash. Howard was jammed behind the steering-wheel, and both legs, his right hip, and his left knee were smashed up. Osborne suffered similar injuries, but the other two escaped with cuts and bruises.
Howard was taken to hospital in Tidworth, where he was on the critical list for nearly six weeks. Joy made many long journeys to visit him. In December, using his connections with the Oxford police, Howard got himself moved to the Wingfield hospital in Oxford. He remained there until March, 1945.
D Company went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, then led the way on the Rhine crossing and participated in the drive to the Baltic. Most of the glider pilots were at Arnhem, then flew again in the Rhine crossing.
When Howard came out of hospital, he was using crutches. By the time his convalescent leave was nearly over, so was the war in Europe. But when he reported for duty, he learned that the Ox and Bucks were going to the Far East for another glider operation. The battalion commander asked Howard if he could get fit in time. It seemed the authorities wanted to promote him and make him second-in-command of the battalion.
Howard immediately started a training programme on a track near his home. On the second day of trying to run laps, his right hip seized up and the leg went dead. He had not allowed his injuries to heal properly, and the strain on the hip from the running caused it to jam, which stopped the nerves running down the leg. Howard went back into hospital for further operations. When he got out this time, the war in Asia was over.
He wanted to stay in the army, make a career of it, ‘but before I knew where I was I was kicked out of the army, invalided out. My feet just didn’t touch’.
Howard went into the Civil Service, first with the National Savings Committee, then with the Ministry of Food, and finally with the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1946 he had an audience with the King at Buckingham Palace. On June 6, 1954, the tenth anniversary of D-Day, he received a Croix de Guerre avec Paime from the French government, which had already renamed the bridge. From that day onward, its name has been ‘Pegasus Bridge’. Later the road between the bridge and the LZ was named ‘Esplanade Major John Howard’.
Howard served as a consultant for Darryl Zanuck in the making of the film, The Longest Day. Played by Richard Todd, he had a prominent role in the film, which of course delighted him. He was less happy about Zanuck’s penchant for putting drama ahead of accuracy: Zanuck insisted that there had to be explosives in place under the bridge, and it was he, not Howard, who prevailed at the bridge on this occasion. In the film, the sappers are seen pulling out explosives from under the bridge and throwing them into the canal. Zanuck also romanticised the arrival of Lovat and his Commandos, quite falsely depicting their bagpipes playing as they crossed Pegasus Bridge.
Howard retired in 1974, and he and Joy live in a small but comfortable home in the tiny village of Burcot, about eight miles from Oxford. Terry and Penny live close enough for the grandchildren to pay regular visits. The Howards do not travel much, but John manages to return to Pegasus Bridge almost every year on June 6. His hip and legs are so mangled that he needs a walking-stick to get around, and then only moves with great pain, but all his enormous energy flows out again when he sees his bridge, and greets Madame Gondree, and starts talking to those of his men who have made it over for this particular anniversary. Sweeney and Bailey are usually there, and sometimes Wood and Parr and Gray and always some of the others.