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Langdon got men ashore without loss Wendy Aldiss
Last updated at 12:01AM, November 21 2015
Marine who was in charge of landing troops on to Sword beach during the D-Day landings
John Langdon commanded the first wave of landing craft putting British troops ashore at Sword beach on D-Day. As a Royal Marines lieutenant, he had nine landing craft assault (LCAs), each manned by four Marines to carry the leading companies of the 1st South Lancashires and 2nd East Yorkshires seven miles through a heavy swell to the Normandy shoreline.
Shortly before the men clambered into the LCAs from the landing shipEmpire Broadsword, he had listened to Major Charles King of the East Yorkshires — who would win the DSO and bar before being killed in France — read aloud to his men Shakespeare’sHenry Vspeech before Agincourt:
“And gentlemen in England now-a-bed/ Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here/And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks/That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
The sea was alive with ships below attacking aircraft. The Norwegian destroyerSvennerwas torpedoed and sunk abeam ofBroadsword. Survivors were picked up, but heading for the shore Langdon had eyes only for mines on the surface, any one of which could rip the bottom out of an LCA. The Marines of 538 Flotilla got the infantry ashore without loss — yet 25 per cent of them died or were seriously wounded on the beaches in the hours ahead.
Returning toBroadswordlying off Ouistreham, Langdon was asked to ferry ashore a beach control party whose LCA had been wrecked. After the second wave of LCAs had returned from the shore, Broadsword picked up some wounded men, including enemy soldiers, before returning to the Solent. She made four more Channel crossings, ferrying American troops to Utah beach north of Carentan, with Langdon leading groups of the ship’s own LCAs ashore or utilising others that had been stranded on the beach.
Returning from her fifth crossing,Broadswordstruck two mines almost simultaneously and began sinking by the stern. Langdon just had time to collect his Bible and a pair of tennis rackets that he had used to keep his men active. Throwing the rackets into one of the LCAs, he jumped into the sea. Broadsword delivered more than 5,000 British and US troops to the beaches before being sunk.
After ten days leave, Langdon went to the Far East to join No 44 (Royal Marines) Commando in Burma. While he was embarking in a landing craft to capture Ramree Island off Arakan, a Japanese shell killed the coxswain. Langdon took over the wheel and steered to safety. The island was captured, with many of the enemy killed by salt-water crocodiles as they attempted to escape.
John Bonsall Langdon was born in 1921 in Enderby in the Canadian Rockies, where the family lived in a log cabin built by his father, Colonel JFP Langdon. He was educated at Oundle and commissioned into the Royal Marines in 1942. After the war, he studied PPE at Lincoln College, Oxford.
He was ordained in 1954 and, after several curacies, he became rector of St Mary’s Swillington near Leeds in 1960. There were two working pits in the parish and he went down them to see the conditions in which he might have to administer the last rites.
Langdon did a course in London that required him to live homeless and penniless to discover how the destitute survive. When trying to get a job at the Hilton hotel, he was told to go to the back door.The Yorkshire Postpicked up the story under the headline, “Rector told to move on by the police.”
In 1985, he moved to St Mark’s, Leeds Woodhouse, where the vicar had committed suicide, the vicarage burnt down and the half-built replacement occupied by squatters. He camped in the burnt-out ruin, which was burgled while he was in Leeds Infirmary suffering from exhaustion. His mother’s jewellery and his television were taken, but he recovered the TV by paying a lad £5 to find it.
Langdon, who was unmarried, was honorary minor canon of Ripon Cathedral until his death. He revisited the Normandy beaches for the 70th anniversary of D-Day, carrying the Bible he had rescued from theEmpire Broadsword. France appointed him to the Legion of Honour while he was in hospital shortly before he died. He pinned the medal to his NHS gown with quiet satisfaction.
The Rev John Langdon, D-Day veteran, was born on April 24, 1921. He died on November 4, 2015, aged 94