Andrew Charles Mynarski

Andrew Charles Mynarski was a Canadian airman from Winnipeg who served as a mid-upper gunner with No. 419 “Moose” Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force, flying Canadian-built Lancasters from Middleton St George in County Durham. He was a member of Flying Officer Art de Breyne’s crew.

On the night of 12/13 June 1944, on the crew’s twelfth operation, their Lancaster (KB726, coded VR-A) was attacking railway targets at Cambrai in northern France when it was hit from below and behind by a night-fighter and set ablaze. With the aircraft going down and the order to bale out given, Mynarski made his way to the escape hatch — but saw that the rear gunner, Flying Officer Pat Brophy, was trapped in his turret, its power gone and the manual gear broken. Mynarski crawled back through the flames to try to free him. He could not move the turret, and in the attempt his parachute and his clothing caught fire. Only when nothing more could be done did he give up; he turned, stood to attention, saluted the trapped gunner, and jumped. He came down with his parachute and clothes alight and died of his burns. By an extraordinary chance the rear gunner survived the crash and lived to tell of what Mynarski had done.

He was buried at Méharicourt Communal Cemetery in France. On the testimony of the gunner whose life he had tried to save, Mynarski was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in 1946 — the last to be given to a Canadian serviceman in the Second World War. His memory is kept alive by the airworthy “Mynarski Memorial Lancaster” preserved in Canada in the markings of his aircraft.