With passions running high over the renaming of Teesside International Airport, Mike Amos explains in a Gadfly Special why he believes the outstanding story of a Second World War hero should not be overlooked

Andrew Mynarski was a true hero, make no mistake of that. They don't give away VCs with every fourth packet of chewing gum.

In his native Canada he remains nationally honoured and forever remembered. In Britain, and at Middleton St George from where in 1944 he flew his final, fatal mission, Andy Mynarski is almost completely forgotten.

The RAF station at Middleton St George is now Teesside International Airport, the only military base to have become a commercial airport and thus the only airport from which a VC has flown operationally.

Amid much in-flight flatulence, the decision was recently made to rename the North-East's second airport Durham Tees Valley, a political fudge of aerodynamic proportions.

Instead of something which at best is a hybrid of which to be least ashamed, why not rename it the Andrew Mynarski VC Airport - a tribute to a gallant man, a memory to be proud of forever?

It's not a Gadfly original. Last week's crowded out column referred to a letter from 78-year-old Betty Amlin in Sedgefield. Her husband Jimmy served with the Royal Canadian Air Force at Middleton St George.

Betty has nothing against Durham - "lovely city" - nor against Tees Valley, if only she or anyone else could any longer work out where it's meant to be.

Certainly it doesn't indicate a very clear flight path to the area between Darlington and Stockton, a point she made to the airport authority when proposing the Mynarski memorial. They didn't even reply.

"In his service to this country, he paid the ultimate sacrifice and yet there isn't one iota of recognition at Teesside Airport," says Betty.

"To call it the Andrew Mynarski VC Airport would really put Teesside on the map, a wonderful thank you for the past and for the future."

She is absolutely right, of course, and no matter that the bureaucratic decision may already have been made. Does anyone in high authority around here have one vestigial jot of the courage of Pilot Officer Mynarski?

IT was on the night of June 12, 1944, that a Lancaster took off from Middleton St George, charged with bombing German supply lines - railway marshalling yards - in France.

The crew of seven Canadians included Andy Mynarski, only 27, promoted hours earlier, and Flying Officer Pat Brophy. In just a few months with Moose Squadron at Middleton St George and at Dishforth, near Thirsk, they had become firm friends.

Particularly they enjoyed pub crawls together. Mynarski is said even to have bailed Brophy out of local police custody after a brawl.

On the night of June 12, he was to come once again to the aid of his companion.

As the Lancaster crossed the French coast, it was caught by enemy searchlights and despite the efforts of pilot Art de Breyne - his mother from Durham City, his grandfather from Winston, near Barnard Castle - suffered several hits from a Junkers fighter.

De Breyne and others had jumped. Mynarski was about to follow when he noticed through the flames that Brophy, the rear gunner, was trapped at the back of the plane, cut off in his plexiglass turret.

Contemptuous of both his own safety and survival, Mynarski determined to bail out Brophy once again.

Brophy survived. As the flames licked around him he looked, for some reason, at his watch.

"It was 13 minutes past midnight, June 13 on our thirteenth mission," he wrote subsequently.

For Andy Mynarski, alone among the magnificent seven, the unlucky number was to prove altogether more significant.

Mynarski turned from the escape hatch to safety and stared towards Brophy, then crawled towards him through blazing hydraulic oil as the plane careered earthwards.

By the time he neared the turret, his own clothes and parachute were blazing.

"Wild with desperation and pain, he tore at the door with his bare hands," wrote Brophy. "By now he was a mass of flames below the waist."

Brophy yelled at him to go back. "Finally, with time running out, he realised that he could do nothing to help me.

"When I waved him away again he hung his head and nodded, as though he was ashamed to leave - ashamed that sheer heart and courage hadn't been enough."

Mynarski crawled backwards through the blazing oil, never taking his eyes off his friend. When he came to the escape hatch, he stood up and came to attention.

Uniform ablaze, grim but unflinching, he saluted his senior officer and said something. "Even though I couldn't hear it," wrote Brophy, "I knew it was 'Goodnight, Sir'."

A miraculous crash landing, only two bombs exploded, Pat Brophy was freed by the force of impact and survived uninjured.

Andy Mynarski was found by French Resistance workers but died a few hours later.

Brophy vowed to gain recognition for his friend. Two years later, on October 11, 1946, the London Gazette announced a posthumous VC.

"Pilot Officer Mynarski must have been aware that in trying to free the rear gunner he was almost certain to lose his own life," read the citation.

"Despite this, with outstanding courage and complete disregard for his own safety, he went to the rescue.

"Willingly accepting the danger, Pilot Officer Mynarski lost his life by a conspicuous act of heroism which called for valour of the highest order."

Pat Brophy paid tribute of his own. "I will always believe that a divine providence intervened to save me because of what I had seen, so that the world might know of a gallant man, who laid down his life for his friend."

Bill Taylor, a Bishop Auckland lad long in Toronto, was among those who spotted last week's trailer for the Andy Mynarski story.

In Canada, he says, a Lancaster bomber restored to resemble Mynarski's can frequently still be seen and heard overhead in the summer months - "a magnificent sight and sound".

In Canada, and particularly around his native Winnipeg, his bravery is recognised in many other ways - lakes, parks and schools all named in his honour.

In County Durham, or whatever nonsense we must now call it, there's little more than a picture in the airport hotel to salute the man who fought, and died, for our country.

The new name is a tribute only to compromise, to least worst pragmatism. Andrew Mynarski Airport represents something better, and nobler, by far than Durham Tees Valley.

The column with drive - Page 11