Huddersfield hero killed aged 24 on D-Day ‘left by local war memorial’

A soldier from Huddersfield who volunteered to fight with the Air Force was one of the first to be killed on D-Day, June 6, 1944, during the Allied invasion of German-occupied France.

Sadly, the name of Sergeant Eric Lightowler, 24, from Moldgreen, appears to be missing from local war memorials, according to historians at Kirkheaton History Group.

Today, the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the History Group recalled Sergeant Lightowler’s brave deeds on that day.

Read more: Yorkshire town at center of ‘forgotten massacre’

Born in 1920, he was the son of Albert and Edith Lightowler, of Moldgreen, Huddersfield. He enlisted in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (The West Riding) and then volunteered for the Air Force. He spent many weeks training to be a pilot, first in motorboats and then in gliders that could either carry up to 28 troops or, alternatively, heavy equipment and fewer soldiers.

On June 6, Sergeant Lightowler was co-pilot in one of the more than 600 Horsa gliders used to transport the British 6th Airborne Division to Normandy. The pilot was Staff Sergeant John Brabham. The glider had a bulldozer and five Royal Engineers on board.

The disaster occurred as they approached the French coast and the rope broke between the glider and the aircraft towing it. He was forced to ditch in the sea about a mile offshore. Three of the engineers survived.

One, Sapper Ronald Howard, later explained what he saw. He said: “I went down into the sea ….. about a mile off the French coast ….. The pilot I never saw. The co-pilot (Eric Lightowler) was injured and drowned almost immediately.

“The rest of us climbed the fuselage. The sea was very rough and the glider broke up completely within five minutes. As each wave came, we had a job to keep together. We lost Sapper Powell and Driver Gibbons after the first five minutes Neither of them could swim and had no life jackets. That left the three of us hanging on to the rope, which a few minutes later descended on us and took us all prisoners.”

The bodies of Roydon Powell and Ellis Gibbons were never found, while those of John Brabham and Eric Lightowler washed up on the beach. Eric Lightowler was buried at Villers-sur-Mer but was later reburied in Ranville Cemetery in October 1945. His brother Geoffrey landed with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment on the Normandy beaches a few days after D-Day. Later learned that his brother had been killed in action.

Sgt Lightowler was one of hundreds of Yorkshire men who were killed, wounded or captured during the Normandy campaign.

Source: Operation Tonga – The Glider Assault: 6 June 1944 by Kevin Shannon and Stephen Wright. The Kirkheaton History Group website can be found here.

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