June 1944. Bliss was tasked with carrying Leonard Mosley’s typewriter ribbon to France with paper and a camera (along with equipment critical to the mission), Mosley also being parachuted into France with the Battalion carrying his typewriter. After the landing in France on the morning of 6 June 1944, Bliss was missing (assumed dead) for two days but had reached Caen to begin his work. According to Mosley, Bliss: ‘moved around the outskirts of the town, sniping sentries and dynamiting unattended lorries. When things got too hot for him, he stole a Nazi regimental commander’s car and sped north. When machine gun bullets put his car in a ditch, he scrambled out, did a quick run round the back of the Nazi post which had stopped him and gave it three hand grenades through the slits.’ Bliss’s battalion captured Ranville and later acted in support of the attack on the Germans at St Honorine. Bliss was put in Command of a Composite Company of the battalion on 18 June 1944. On 3 July 1944, Bliss gained command of A Company of the battalion. On 7 July 1944, A Company was subject to heavy fire whereupon Bliss fired a Bren gun from the hip as he advanced towards the enemy but was wounded. He died from his wounds on 10 July 1944, and was buried at Ranville War Cemetery in Normandy, France. Bliss married Anne May Moore at St Lawrence Church, Bedfordshire, on 28 March 1932. He was survived by his wife and two sons. Bliss’s obituary by Leonard Mosley in The Daily Sketch described Bliss as ‘one of the bravest, and most reckless of all the men who landed in France on D Day. He was the greatest paratrooper of them all. Ask any of the men who went in with the Paratroop Corps, British, Canadian or American, and they will confirm that’. Bliss described his life as a Paratroop leader as ‘another glorious adventure’ and his last letters home described his part in the Normandy campaign as ‘great fun’. References External links British Army Officers 1939−1945 British Parachute Regiment officers British Parachute Regiment soldiers Military personnel from Bedfordshire Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment soldiers 1907 births 1944 deaths People from Sandy, Bedfordshire People educated at Bedford Modern School British Army personnel killed in World War II Burials at Ranville war cemetery