The First Fatality of D-Day?

GWGC headstone of Fred Greenhalgh (Image courtesy of Steve Berridge)

While Lt. Den Brotheridge, taking part in the capture of Pegasus Bridge, is considered to be the first allied soldier killed in action, L/Cpl Fred Greenhalgh (3449663) was possibly the first fatal casualty of D-Day on 6^th June 1944.  Who was he and how did it happen?

Fred was born in 1915 in Chorlton, Lancs, the son of Sam & Lily Greenhalgh. The Greenhalgh's lived in Bury, where Sam worked in a bleachworks and Lily in a papermill.

Early in the war Fred first enlisted in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and was later transferred to the Welsh Regiment before joining the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry on 27^th July 1942.  This was probably in response to a call for volunteers of the highest calibre. He joined the 2^nd Battalion, a unit newly selected to be part of the new elite 6^th Airborne Division, and it was with the 2^nd Bn that he went to Normandy.

L/Cpl Greenhalgh was a bren gunner in 14 Platoon of B Coy, part of the small glider born force assigned the vital task of capturing and holding the two bridges at Benouville.  The platoon (led by Lt Smith) were in nr 3 glider flown by S/Sgt Barkway, which took off from Tarrant Rushton airfield at 22.56 on 5^th June.  Their landing zone (LZ X) was between the river & the canal and was an extremely difficult approach to make, but nevertheless at 00.16 the first glider touched down only yards from the Canal Bridge with the others close behind.

Sadly, out of the three gliders to land in LZ X,  glider 3 was the one which ended up in a large pond in the marshy field, with several men trapped in the wreckage of the shattered glider.  Accounts vary as to whether the unconscious  L/Cpl Greenhalgh was trapped in the wreckage or was thrown out of the disintegrating glider, but even more sadly, L/Cpl Greenhalgh was the only one killed on landing - drowned in the pond.

The mission was judged a great success, with Major John Howard leading D Coy in a classic Coup de Main. The Caen Canal Bridge (now known as Pegasus Bridge) and the Orne River Bridge were taken intact, German counterattacks were beaten off and the 6^th Airlanding Brigade were rightly feted for their achievement.

Hear more about this operation in our recent online talk, Pegasus Bridge: In Their Own Words, available now.