Hero of the Month - May 2023
Published in Britain at War in May 2023
Pilot Officer Andrew Charles Mynarski VC
My half-century long passion for the Victoria Cross stems from the fact that behind every award of the decoration there is a remarkable story. However, very few VCs from the medal’s long and rich history involve a tale quite as astonishing as that of a Canadian airman serving in Britain during World War Two.
Andrew Charles Mynarksi was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Polish immigrants on October 14 1916. He was one of six children and had two brothers and three sisters.
Mynarski, who was known to family and friends as ‘Andy’, was educated at King Edward and Isaac Newton Elementary Schools, both in Winnipeg, later graduating from St. John’s Technical School, also in Winnipeg.
At the age of 16, and because his father had died, he started a job as a leather worker – more specifically a chamois cutter for a furrier – to help support his large family.
In November 1940, he enlisted in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, a militia unit, but on September 29 the following year he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) having attended its recruitment centre in Winnipeg. After basic training at No. 2 Wireless School, Calgary, Alberta, he received further instruction at No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School, Macdonald, Manitoba, where he passed out as an air gunner.
Mynarski was promoted to sergeant in December 1942, shortly before travelling overseas to the US and, later, Britain early in 1943. After arriving in the UK, he joined 16 Operational Training Unit (OTU) in March 1943. In June of the same year, he joined 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit and during the same month he was promoted to flight sergeant.
In October 1943, he was posted to 9 Squadron, an Avro Lancaster bomber unit based at RAF Bardney in Lincolnshire. In December 1943, he was dispatched to 1668 Heavy Conversion Unit and, in the same month, he was promoted to warrant officer 2.
In April 1944, Mynarski went to serve with 419 ‘Moose’ Squadron RCAF based at Middleton St George, Co Durham. His role was to fly in No. 6 Bomber Group which had Handley Page Halifax bombers. His first operational sortie took place on the night of April 22/3 and it was to bomb enemy targets in Laon, France.
Having then completed a conversion course on his squadron being re-equipped with Avro Lancasters, Mynarksi became mid-upper gunner in a seven-man bombing crew and participated in several sorties aimed at destroying German defences and other targets prior to the D-Day landings of June 6 1944.
More specifically his crew was chosen to take part in General (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Transportation Plan”, in which the USAAF and RAF were designated to destroy Western Europe’s rail, road and bridge networks in order to prevent the Germans from bringing reinforcements to the Normandy beachheads.
They were a closely knit team – at a time when the life expectancy of bomber crews was measured in months – who had flown a dozen sorties together. After every mission, they returned to their British base and asked for a slice of their favourite lemon meringue pie, made by one of the cooks.
The gunners, Mynarski and Pilot Officer Pat Brophy, who in the aircraft were isolated from the rest of the crew, had grown particularly close, and the former even bailed the latter out of jail after a scrap. Before going to bed, Mynarski, a Non Commissioned Officer (NCO), tended to give Brophy, an officer, an exaggerated salute and say: “Good night, sir!”
On the evening of June 12 1944, just six days after the D-Day landings, their Lancaster took off on its thirteenth sortie, heading for the railway yard at Cambrai, northern France. En route, a German Junkers Ju-88 night fighter streaked under the Lancaster and opened fire. Three explosions rocked the aircraft and at 12.13am (June 13) and Captain Art de Breyne gave the signal for the crew to bale out.
However, just as Mynarski was about to jump to safety, he saw Brophy, the rear gunner, struggling to free himself. As soon as he realised his friend was in difficulty, Mynarski crawled on his hands and knees to the tail of the aircraft. When the plane had been hit, its hydraulic system had been shattered, locking the turret at such an angle that Brophy was unable to escape.
First with an axe and, then, with his bare hands, Mynarski frantically tried to free Brophy, but the flames had engulfed the aircraft. “Go back, Andrew! Get out!” shouted Brophy. Eventually, by this point with serious burns, Mynarski, seeing he could do no more, crawled back to the escape hatch, stood in his burning clothes, glanced towards his friend, and, as he had done so many times before, saluted and said something aloud. Brophy could not hear what had been said, but he was in no doubt of the three words that had been uttered: “Good night, sir.” Mynarski then leapt from the stricken aircraft.
Brophy was by this point alone in the aircraft and hurtling towards what seemed his inevitable death – especially as there were five tons of explosive barely 50 feet from where he was trapped in the turret. It seemed pointless, but as the plane was about to hit the ground, Brophy instinctively adopted the crash position.
However, just before the Lancaster slammed into a field, its port wing hit a large tree, which not only tore off the burning wing but undoubtedly saved Brophy from certain death.
“The resulting whiplash effect on the tail of the aircraft snapped my turret around and the doors flew open, freeing me from my potentially explosive and flaming prison,” Brophy later recalled. “I came to rest against a small tree about thirty to fifty feet from the remains of the aircraft. That is when I heard two explosions together. Only when I felt solid earth tremble under me did I realise the crash was over, and somehow I was alive.”
Six of the seven crew survived their ordeal and were found by French farmers and then helped by the Resistance. Four made it back to Britain, while the other two, including Brophy, were captured by the Germans and imprisoned until the end of the war.
The only member of the crew to perish was…Mynarski. He survived his parachute jump but died shortly afterwards as a result of his serious burns. Stocky, dark haired and with an infectious grin, he was aged 27 and single.
It was only on Brophy’s release in 1945 that the full story could be told and appropriate steps were taken to ensure that Mynarski received a posthumous VC. Indeed, he became the first member of the RCAF to receive the prestigious award. Furthermore, Mynarski was posthumously promoted to the rank of pilot officer.
His VC was announced in The London Gazette on October 11 1946 when his lengthy citation ended: “The rear gunner had a miraculous escape when the aircraft crashed. He subsequently testified that, had Pilot Officer Mynarski not attempted to save his comrade’s life, he could have left the aircraft in safety and would, doubtless, have escaped death.
“Pilot Officer Mynarksi must have been fully aware that in trying to free the rear gunner he was almost certain to lose his own life. Despite this, with outstanding courage and complete disregard for his own safety, he went to the rescue. Willingly accepting the danger, Pilot Officer Mynarksi lost his life by a conspicuous act of heroism which called for valour of the highest order.”
Mynarski’s mother, Anna, received her son’s posthumous VC from the Right Honorable R.F. McWilliams, the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba.
Mynarski is buried at Méharicourt Communal Cemetery, near Amiens, France. There are numerous memorials to the airman, both in Canada and Britain. His name is also on the RAF Memorial at St Clement Danes in London.
In 1989, his family loaned his VC to Canadian Air Comman so that it could go on display at the Mynarski Memorial Room of the Headquarters, 1 Canadian Air Division, in Winnipeg.
A bronze statue of Mynarski was dedicated in 2005 at RAF Middleton St George, the base where he served. The memorial depicts Mynarski at the rear of the stricken aircraft, his right arm raised in a salute. In his home city of Winnipeg, a school, a park and a cadet squadron have been named in his honour and there is a further memorial to Mynarski.
I first came across the astonishing story of Mynarksi’s brave action – and Brophy’s unbelievable escape from death – nearly two decades ago when I was researching my book Victoria Cross Heroes, first published in 2006 to mark the 150th anniversary of the VC.
I currently own the largest collection of VCs in the world, yet few stories of bravery have moved me more than this incident and it was reconstructed for a television series that I presented in conjunction with my book. I do not, however, own the Mynarski medal group which is situated in the Air Force Heritage Park Museum in Winnipeg.
In 1965, Brophy wrote an article about his friend, Mynarksi, and concluded it with the words: “I’ll always believe that a divine providence intervened to save me because of what I had seen – so the world might know of a gallant man who laid down his life for a friend.”
The interaction between friendship and courage is centuries old. In the Bible, the Book of John puts it perfectly: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends.”
During my near-lifelong fascination with the concept of bravery, I have come across countless incidents in which an individual risked, and in many cases gave, his life to protect or rescue a comrade who was in mortal danger.
Yet to me it is this single story involving Mynarksi and Brophy that, above all others, captures the extent to which the close bond between two men can inspire an act of barely believable daring and self-sacrifice.
Download a PDF of the original Britain At War article.