- SURNAME
Howarth
- FORENAME
Arnold
- UNIT
2 Commando
- RANK
Lance Corporal + Lance Sergeant
- NUMBER
3448514
- AWARD
British Empire Medal,Mention in Despatches,Croix de Guerre (Fr)
- PLACE
St Nazaire 1942 (MiD) 1943 (BEM) 1944 (CdeG)
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
parent unit Grenadier Guards
son of J.J. and Mrs Howarth,3 Kenion Street,Rochdale,Lancashire
Lancashire Fusiliers (TA) 1936
Grenadier Guards 1938
2 Commando (L/Cpl)
POW March 1942 St Nazaire
escaped
WIA Salerno
married Irene Nuttall during war
discharged on medical grounds
died 8.11.1944 Rochdale (from perforated duodenal ulcer)
note from Pete Rogers
Arnie Howarth joined the Grenadier Guards in 1939 aged 18. His 5 brothers were also in the Armed Forces. He later volunteered for and was attached to No.2 Commando. On the 28th March 1942 he sailed with the Commandos to St Nazaire and took part in Operation Chariot. He was a member of Lt John Roderick's troop and was on board HMS Campbeltown. After landing and during the attack Arnie Howarth was wounded, and when ammunition was running low, he and several others took shelter in a cellar of a bombed out building. They decided to leave and split up and try and make it back to the UK. Howarth although wounded was befriended by a French family who gave him civilian clothes. He managed to get on a train and travelled to Bordeaux escaping to the unoccupied Vichy France. After subsequent capture and imprisonment by Gendarmes he ended up in a Fort La Revere Nice along with about 300 other British service personnel. In the Autumn of 1942 he and about 50 others managed to escape. Howarth was part of the organising committee. In October 1942 he managed to get back to the UK. In August 42 he wrote to the Grenadier Guards RHQ whilst a prisoner and describes the cut on his face but also the fact that about 20 -30 pieces of shrapnel in his back had to be left in place. Being the type of man he was Arnie Howarth was desperate to rejoin 2 Commando and so he did. During Operation Avalanche, he was with 2 Commando when they attacked at Salerno. It was here that he was wounded again, injuries that this time resulted in his being sent home at the end of year. Arnie is famous as being one of the 5 Commandos who had landed at St Nazaire that managed to get back. He was awarded the BEM and a Mention in Despatches and the French awarded him the Croix De Guerre. At the end of October 1944 Arnie, who was residing in Rochdale, had been presented to the King and awarded his BEM. This was only 3 days after getting married to his sweetheart Irene. He had been suffering constant pain but was not one to complain. On the 8th November 1944, the pain became unbearable and he was rushed into hospital in Rochdale where sadly he died on the operating table. An article in the Guards Newsletter of 1990 stated his shrapnel wounds were more serious than had been realised. I loooked up a handwritten nominal list of 2 Commando that I had been given and against his name was "Died of wounds sustained at Salerno". I have now traced a book written by an American Jew who was resident in Europe at the time of the raid, and the same age as Arnie. They had met on the train in Vichy France and the American offered to help him in his escape. In this book he describes speaking to Arnie's wife of 13 days, Irene, who mentions about the pain that he constantly suffered after his injuries and there is reference to shrapnel in his thigh and stomach after the Salerno raid. He is not currently shown on the CWGC roll. Something I will try and change.
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