Essex D-Day paratrooper, 16, died with his dog just moments after landing in Normandy

An Essex D-Day hero died aged just 16 moments after he landed in Normandy with his dog. Emile Corteil was a renowned D-Day paratrooper who, along with his military dog Glen, landed in Normandy only to be killed by friendly fire.

The pair were found dead with Emile still holding onto Glen's lead. Emile's Great nephew, Trevor, an appliance engineer from Addlestone, had no knowledge of Emile Corteil, who was part of the 9th (Essex) Parachute Battalion, until about 15 years ago when he was establishing his company and searched his unique surname on Google to see if it could serve as a brand name.

Upon questioning his eldest aunt, Trevor from Surrey, discovered that Emile was indeed his great uncle. Emile had parachuted into France in the early hours of June 6, 1944, with his para dog Glen, as part of a mission to breach Germany's Atlantic Wall at Merville.

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Regrettably, they were informed that the RAF would be bombing the area shortly after their landing, but they couldn't evacuate the drop zone quickly enough due to the Germans flooding the fields. Emile and Glen were found dead on a nearby road, with Emile still clutching Glen's lead. It was then ordered that they be buried together, marking Emile as the only known case of a soldier from the Second World War being interred with his dog.

After learning about this tragic event, Trevor decided to follow in Emile's footsteps. He now plans to take his two daughters, Haley, 13, and Emily, eight, to visit Emile's grave and the museum where his portrait is displayed.

Trevor shared with PA Real Life, "I'm self-employed and when I send people my bill my surname comes up on the invoice and they go that's an interesting surname, where does it come from? " He also expressed a poignant regret: "It's hard for me because I would have loved to (have) seen, had he travelled further, what he would have done."

The discovery of his relatives Glen and Emile was a revelation: "But finding out about Glen and Emile, seeing the pictures and just going, 'Oh my god, they've written all of these articles' that I didn't know anything about, is quite amazing."

Trevor knew his granddad, Rene Corteil, had been a dispatch rider in the British Army during World War II. As a child, Trevor was captivated by military tales and would listen intently to his granddad's stories while poring over Commando Comics.

Years later, when establishing his own business, Trevor's Appliance and Plumbing Services, in 2009, he decided to delve into his family name's history, leading him to an unexpected discovery online: "I've typed Corteil into the internet and up pops this soldier, Emile Corteil, a paratrooper with a dog," he recounted. Curious about the identity of this soldier, Trevor said, "I was like, that's not granddad, so who are you? ".

Upon consulting his oldest aunt, Trevor uncovered the story of a previously unspoken-about relative, his grandfather's younger brother who died in the war. He delved into the past and discovered a trove of books and magazines featuring articles about Emile Corteil, who enlisted in the army in 1943.

A simple DNA test via Ancestry later revealed Emile's original birth certificate, indicating he probably fibbed about his age to join the army at just 16. "I thought wow, this is really interesting," he remarked.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Emile was part of the 9th (Essex) Parachute Battalion that parachuted into northern Normandy. Their objective was to destroy the Merville Gun Battery, a segment of the Nazi's Atlantic Wall designed to protect Europe from Allied forces.

"The British knew that they had to take these out," Trevor explained. However, Emile wasn't alone when he leapt from the aircraft he was joined by Glen, a para-dog tasked with rallying the troops upon landing and detecting landmines.

"They were landing in the early hours of the morning, so it was dark and you've got men scattered all over the place and you need to find out friend or foe quite quickly," Trevor mentioned. The dog could identify soldiers much quicker by their scent, so part of his role was to help gather them together, so they could move up and take out the gunning placements."

"Glen's role was also to be a tape runner, where he takes a long strip of white tape and runs through a minefield in a straight line, drops the tape and then runs back along the white line. The idea being, he identifies there are mines on the path and gives soldiers a clear path to run through."

Unfortunately, Emile and Glen never made it to the gunning placements. Glen refused to jump at the last second and had to be "thrown out of the plane", resulting in an extra 10-second flight time that caused the paratroopers to land further away from their intended target.

The troops were instructed to vacate the area swiftly as the RAF had plans to bomb the drop zone to stop any equipment from being captured by the enemy. However, the Germans had inundated the fields, complicating the retrieval of their equipment, and by the time they managed to regroup, it was already too late.

'Still holding Glen's lead'

"It's a shame and quite tragic because they were killed by friendly fire," Trevor disclosed. "They were killed together and he was still holding Glen's lead, so the commanding officer insisted that they be buried together."

Emile and Glen received a joint burial at Ranville War Cemetery in Normandy, marking what is believed to be the only instance in the Second World War where a soldier was interred alongside his dog. After piecing together the story, Trevor proposed to his brother Vincent, aged 54, that they should participate in a D-Day remembrance event in France and follow in his footsteps in 2007.

"So we've travelled to France and gone up to the Merville gunning placements from the road that they were killed on," he recounted. "We were travelling the same route that they would have taken."

Upon reaching the destination, Trevor found that the gunning placements had been transformed into a museum, Musee de la Batterie de Merville, and a ceremony was underway. "We went through the museum and his picture's up on the wall, which is like 'wow'," added Trevor.

Next, they made their way to his gravesite at Ranville and were shocked to discover that they were not the only ones looking for Emile. "The graves are immaculate, there's no way I could get my lawn to look like that – it's just stunning," said Trevor.

"We walked down the row where his plot is and every now and then, there's a poppy cross there. When you get to his, there was 10 poppy crosses there and it's like, who has put those poppy crosses there?"

"And there's a historian with a tour group and he's talking about our great uncle. I mean you couldn't have imagined better timing, it was spot on."

Trevor returned home and showed his family the photographs he had taken. Two years later in June 2009 they returned to Normandy with his wife Anita, as well as his parents, uncles and aunties to show them what they had found.

"It was quite special," he said. Trevor and his family have been invited to attend a D-Day memorial service at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 6.

He is also planning on taking his daughters to France so they can visit Emile's grave and the museum. "The family history needs to be told, needs to be shown, because you can't lose this history," he said.

To fill in more blanks on his family tree, Trevor is now planning on doing a complete DNA test with Ancestry, which is offering a free trial for people to trace their family history and access to a wealth of military records from June 5-11, 2024.

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