Good Night, Sir”: The Final Heroism of Andrew Mynarski, VC

June 12th, 1944—Over Northern France

More than 600 Allied bombers pushed through the darkness toward targets supporting the Normandy landings. Among them was Avro Lancaster KB726, call sign “A for Able,” flown by Pilot Officer Arthur de Breyne, a 22-year-old Canadian whose youthful confidence masked the weight of responsibility pressing on him with every mile flown over occupied Europe.

In the mid-upper turret sat Pilot Officer Andrew Charles Mynarski, also 22, peering through the darkness for night fighters. Below, the searchlights of northern France swept the sky in white pillars—dead men’s fingers climbing, grasping, searching. When one beam found a bomber, others converged, illuminating the aircraft for German night fighters to strike.

Mynarski watched a Lancaster ahead fall in flames.

“Poor devils,” someone muttered over the intercom.

De Breyne tried to steady his crew. “Looks like fighters, boys. Luckily, no flak.”

He didn’t finish the sentence before light flak burst beneath them, orange blossoms erupting upward. And then the worst happened—the beams found KB726.

“Hang on! We’re coned!”

De Breyne threw the bomber into a violent corkscrew. The Lancaster pitched downward, banking hard as the crew were flung against their harnesses. At the bottom of the dive, the pilot hauled her upward into cloud cover. They slipped the searchlights.

But unseen in the darkness, a far more lethal hunter stalked them.

The Night Fighter

When German radar operators detected a bomber already illuminated, they often cut the searchlights—signaling that a night fighter had taken over the kill.

Behind the Lancaster, a Junkers Ju 88G eased into position. Its pilot, a veteran of nocturnal interception, reported calmly:

“I have the bomber in my sights.”

In the rear turret, Pat Brophy, also 22, blinked away the after-image of the blinding lights. His night vision barely returning, he spotted a growing silhouette.

“Bogey astern! Six o’clock!”

De Breyne immediately corkscrewed right. Brophy tried to track the German fighter but it slipped beneath him, out of his firing arc.

Then he saw it again—coming up from below.

“He’s under us!”

Brophy fired, tracer streaks slicing through darkness—but the Ju 88 had been modified with Schräge Musik, upward-firing 20mm cannons that could rip open a bomber’s underbelly from a blind spot.

The Ju 88 fired point-blank.

Fire in the Sky

Mynarski watched in horror as 20mm shells tore through the Lancaster’s port wing. The two left engines coughed, sputtered, and died. Fuel lines ignited. A fireball burst outward as flames raced along the wing.

Then the Ju 88 struck the fuselage.

Shrapnel ripped through KB726. Oil lines burst. Hydraulic systems shattered. A mist of atomized oil drifted inside the aircraft—found a spark—and the interior exploded into flames.

In the cockpit, De Breyne lost his instruments. The Lancaster pulled violently left, nearly out of control.

“We’re hit! Port engines gone! Bail out! Bail out!”

He activated the bailout signal. But in the rear turret, Brophy heard nothing. The intercom was dead.

“Skipper? Skipper, can you hear me? Anyone?”

Silence.

Heat washed over him. Flames crept closer. He turned his turret’s controls to align the escape doors with the fuselage—but the hydraulics were dead. The turret stayed locked.

His parachute hung in the burning fuselage behind him. He managed to pry a turret door open and hook the chute inside—but there was no way out. He tried the manual crank.

It snapped off in his hands.

He was trapped.

A Friend in the Flames

In the mid-upper turret, Andrew Mynarski clipped on his parachute and moved toward the escape hatch. He was seconds from jumping when instinct—or something deeper—told him to look back.

Through the smoke and fire, he saw Pat Brophy still inside the rear turret, struggling desperately.

Their eyes met through the flames.

Something in Mynarski hardened. He turned away from the exit, seized an axe, and charged into the inferno.

Crawling low through burning oil and searing metal, his flight suit ignited. Flames climbed his legs, eating through fabric and skin. He didn’t stop.

“Andy—don’t try!” Brophy shouted when he saw him coming.

But Mynarski didn’t listen.

He slammed the axe into the turret ring, trying to pry it loose. He grabbed the door with bare hands—flesh burning—and pulled with everything he had.

It didn’t move.

Brophy screamed for him to go. “Get out, Andy! Please! Get out!”

The turret refused to turn. The gap was too small. Mynarski—now engulfed to the waist—slumped in despair. Tears mixed with smoke. He looked at Brophy one last time.

Then Brophy saw him straighten. Despite the flames consuming him, Mynarski stood at attention inside the burning fuselage.

He raised his hand in salute.

“Good night, sir,” he shouted—words Brophy could not hear, but understood.

Then Andrew Mynarski stepped backward into fire and disappeared out the hatch.

Impact

The rest of the crew bailed out. De Breyne held the bomber steady as long as he could, then leapt into darkness. They believed all were out.

But Brophy remained—still trapped in the turret.

The Lancaster descended, aflame, trees rising toward it. Just before impact, the left wing struck a tree. The violent spin tore the rear turret completely free, throwing Brophy clear. He crashed through branches, hit the ground, and blacked out.

When he awoke, he found himself alone in a burning French forest—miraculously uninjured.

And alive.

Aftermath

Brophy evaded capture for months with the help of the French Resistance. When he was finally reunited with Allied forces, he learned that the friend who had crawled through fire to save him had died of his burns shortly after landing.

The knowledge crushed him.

He dedicated the rest of his life to telling Andrew Mynarski’s story—to ensure the world knew the cost of that final salute.

In 1946, after Brophy’s testimony reached military authorities, Andrew Charles Mynarski was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross—the highest award for gallantry in the British Commonwealth.

His citation reads in part:

“He attempted, at the risk of his own life and in the face of the greatest peril, to save the life of a comrade.”

Andrew never knew that Brophy survived.
Pat Brophy never forgot that Andrew died trying to save him.

Legacy

Today, statues of Mynarski stand in Winnipeg and at the site of the crash in France. Lancaster KB726 was christened “Mynarski’s Lanc,” honoring the man who crawled through fire because he refused to abandon a friend.

His last act was not to fight an enemy, but to save a comrade.

In the end, the Victoria Cross was awarded not for killing, nor for victory, but for a moment when a young man chose compassion over survival—duty over fear—loyalty over life.

A final salute in the burning dark.