More on a Dieppe Ranger


I was recently very lucky to be contacted by some of the surviving members of Howard Henry's family.

Readers of Rangers at Dieppe may remember that Henry died on the beach during the attack; I was able to determine that he's the American misidentified as a Canadian in one of the most famous photos of the battle and its aftermath.

The family was kind enough to provide me with some additional information, and help me correct one thing that's wrong in the book. Contrary to what I had thought from my research, Henry was not shipped back to the U.S. after the war, but rather is buried in Normandy.

(If you haven't read the book: Attached as an observer to a Canadian unit, he went out on one of the bloodiest beaches. There's no real indication of when or exactly how he died, but even getting out of the landing craft at that point would have taken an immense amount of courage.)

Interestingly, Herman had been in the cavalry before going to Europe and joining the Rangers. I haven't looked through all the records, but that may make him one of the few original Rangers with that background.

He was T-4 at the time of his death; that would be roughly the equivalent of a sergeant today. You generally got that rank because of a service specialty, but at this point I'm not sure what Henry's was. It wasn't listed in the original records.

I'll post more updates as I get them. (You can go my Rangers at Dieppe website here; I haven't updated it with the new information yet.)