Profile: Unexpected Quest

By a series of fortunate connections, Ryland Howard III ’63 was finally able to visit the location where his father’s plane went down in World War II.

Jana F. Brown

Ryland Howard III ‘63 in front of a Piper L-4, similar to the plane his father flew in World War II.

Growing up on his family ranch in West Texas, Ryland Howard III ’63 was surrounded by memories of his father, Ryland, Jr. He knew his father’s parents, brother, and sisters. He knew about the elder Ryland’s cheerful, outgoing nature. He knew his dad was a good tennis player, that he had a wonderful smile, and possessed a relaxed social confidence. Ryland III can see remnants of his father when he looks in the mirror; both men were built tall and lean. His mother, Edith Anson Howard, made sure young Ryland knew all there was to know about his father as she raised him. His Christmas stocking, sewn by his mother, even bore his father’s military insignia. But as much as Mrs. Howard was able to share, the reality is that the two namesakes never got a chance to meet. “This is a man I have known all my life but never knew,” says Howard.

Ryland III’s mother was pregnant with him when she learned that her husband’s plane had been shot down in Normandy on July 4, 1944. Days earlier, Ryland, Jr. had written home to his parents to share that his brother, Philo, shot down months earlier in Germany, was alive. The news was heartening to the Howards, until they learned their other son’s fate. Philo Howard would live until the age of 92, but Ryland, Jr. was dead at 30. Five months later, Ryland III was born.

Captain Alfred Ryland Howard, Jr.

Captain Alfred Ryland Howard, Jr. served as a forward air observer for the artillery in the 90th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army during the war. He arrived in Normandy in early June, 1944, and was killed a month later. Captain Howard was piloting a single-engine Piper L-4, made of canvas over a light metal frame, when he was shot down. Second Lieutenant William G. Windeler, a forward air observer, was also on board. “The planes flew slowly enough to allow air crews to spot the enemy and direct artillery fire on the enemy positions,” says Ryland III. 

Though he knew his father’s liaison aircraft had gone down in Normandy during the war, Howard spent his entire life wondering about the exact circumstances and location of his final moments. After years of research and, through a series of serendipitous connections, on June 11, 2019, he was able to stand in the western Normandy field where his father died.

By coincidence, Howard met a retired major general, Frank Norris, when Norris moved to San Antonio in the 1970s, where Howard practiced law. A friend referred Norris to Howard to handle a legal matter. He recognized Howard’s name as the same as an officer he knew well during WWII. Howard and Norris became close friends. Later, Norris conducted research that helped pinpoint the region of Normandy where the elder Howard was killed. He also broke the news to Howard that his father’s death was from friendly fire, a howitzer shell.

Fast forward to 2018, when Ryland III read an article in a World War II magazine about the European war campaign. He contacted the author, Kevin Hymel, who lived in San Antonio, and was directed to a St. Louis-based historian named Norm Richards. Howard e-mailed Richards with a description of his father’s service, the known details of his death, and his plan to head to Normandy in 2019 in search of more information. Richards’s father had also served in the 90th Division. He advised Howard to attend a commemoration ceremony in Périers, France, on June 8, 2019, recognizing the members of the 90th Division.

“He said I should make contact with a father and son, Henri and Christian Levaufre, who organized the commemoration,” says Howard. Henri Levaufre responded by e-mail almost immediately, explaining that he not only knew what happened to Ryland Howard, Jr., but also the precise location of where his plane had gone down.

Howard in front of a memorial to the men of the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division, which included his father, Ryland, Jr.

“He said he had been there and had seen a fragment of his plane,” recalls Howard. “I was overwhelmed.” Howard arrived in Normandy at dawn on June 7, 2019. He spent many hours driving around the area, taking in the natural beauty and contemplating the 5,000 men in his father’s division who were casualties in a 10-day battle to break the German Line anchored on a now-peaceful geographical prominence in western Normandy near St. Lo. He also discovered several monuments erected to honor the men of the 90th Division, who helped liberate France during the war.

Prior to his arrival, Howard received word that Henri Levaufre, the local expert on World War II who had been so helpful, had died. He was greeted instead by Henri’s son, Christian, who had learned enough from his own father to help Howard find his. First, Christian led the commemoration ceremony his father had planned before his death. Henri, just a boy at the outbreak of the war, had made it his life’s mission to document the 90th Division’s history. Over the next 75 years, he met hundreds of WWII veterans, took veterans to the battle sites, including one to the hedgerow where he was wounded, another to his actual foxhole, and others to the barn where soldiers sheltered under fire.

“This man was truly an unsung hero of the French appreciation for their liberation by the Americans,” says Howard. A few days after the commemoration ceremony, Howard, wearing his father’s Army jacket with its 90th Division insignia, got in the car with Christian Levaufre. They drove north from Périers to a small, nondescript field. Christian handed Howard two copper shell casings that had been found nearby (though not related to his father’s death), and they walked into the field. They discussed his father’s death by friendly fire, not an uncommon occurrence in the chaotic circumstances of the war at the time, but a fact with which Howard had to come to terms years earlier.

“Christian handed me this piece of metal, a small folded aluminum strip, and said he had found it in his father’s office with a tag on it,” says Howard. “The tag read, ‘The reconnaissance plane, which fell in 1944.’ I now have the piece of the plane.”

Before he read Kevin Hymel’s article and one connection led to another (and another), Ryland Howard had always wondered about his father’s final days. He had not, however, understood that a quest lay before him. In that field, where his father’s plane came to rest, he felt a deep connection to the man he knew so well but never met.

“I just wanted to follow this path,” says Howard. “I got to know the land in Normandy, drove the windy roads, saw the hedgerows, and, then, there I was, in the field holding this piece of his plane. Before I met all these people who helped me, I hadn’t even known there was a quest to make.”