🌺 “Paratrooper and His Dog Who Trained Together and Fell Together” - Emile Servais Corteil & Glen

Описание: 🌺 “Paratrooper and His Dog Who Trained Together and Fell Together” — The Story of Private Emile Servais Corteil & Glen 🌺

Emile Servais Corteil was born in October 1924 in Lambeth, London.
His father died when Emile was just eight years old, leaving his mother Jessie to raise him alone through the difficult years of the 1930s.
Like so many wartime youths, he grew up fast, with responsibility arriving far sooner than adulthood.

By 1942 he was living in Hertfordshire, and at eighteen he made the decision that would define the rest of his short life.
On 6 November 1942, he enlisted into the Norfolk Regiment.

But Emile wanted more than standard service.
He volunteered for the airborne forces — the most demanding, elite arm of the British Army.

At RAF Ringway he completed parachute training, earning the maroon beret of an airborne soldier.
His instructor wrote only one simple line on his assessment:

“A very good man. Performance good all round.”

When training was complete, Emile joined A Company, 9th (Essex) Parachute Battalion.
This was where his path took an extraordinary turn.

He was assigned as the handler of Glen, a trained Alsatian used for patrol and guard duties.
Man and dog trained together.
Worked together.
Jumped together.
And the two became part of A Company — part of an elite airborne unit.

On the night of 5 June 1944, Emile and Glen boarded a Stirling aircraft bound for Normandy.
Their mission: to drop east of the River Orne, near Ranville, as part of the opening blow of D-Day.

Around 00:50 hours, the aircraft pushed into Normandy under heavy German flak.
Tracer fire, explosions, the roar of engines — and into the darkness they jumped.

The drop was scattered.
Some paratroopers landed on target, others miles away, alone in fields and orchards lit only by the moon.
Emile and Glen landed safely, but far from their intended rendezvous.

All across Normandy, small groups of the 6th Airborne tried desperately to regroup.
Confusion, darkness, and the chaos of the opening of D-Day made every hedgerow a danger, every movement a risk.

In those early hours of 6 June 1944, Emile and Glen were making their way through the bocage — searching for comrades, moving toward their objective, doing exactly what they had trained for.

But somewhere in the dark, they came under fire.
A brief fight.
A flash of gunfire.
And the war ended for both of them.

Emile Corteil, nineteen years old.
Glen, his loyal companion, who had followed him from England into the night skies over France.

Their bodies were found side by side — just as they had trained, lived, and fought.

Today Emile rests in Ranville War Cemetery, Normandy.
Glen is believed to be buried with him — one of the only known cases of a military working dog interred in a Commonwealth War Grave.

The family inscription on his headstone reads, painfully and beautifully:

“HAD YOU KNOWN OUR BOY YOU WOULD HAVE LOVED HIM TOO.
‘GLEN’ HIS PARATROOP DOG WAS KILLED WITH HIM.”

🌺 Lest we forget Private Emile Servais Corteil — and Glen, his faithful airborne companion. 🌺

#EmileCorteil #ParachuteRegiment #DDay #6thAirborne
#Ranville #AirborneForces #WW2History
#WarDogs #ThoseWhoCameBefore #LestWeForget