IMPORTANT MEDALS AWARDED TO the ‘SAVIOUR’ OF THE BRITISH 1ST AIRBORNE DIVISION AT ARNHEM TO BE SOLD BY NOONANS

The extremely important and rare group of twelve awarded to Brigadier Sir Mark ‘Honker’ Henniker of the Royal Engineers - one of the founders of the 1st Airborne Division who were most famously known for Operation Market Garden in the Second World War will be offered by Noonans Mayfair in their auction of Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. It is being sold by his family and expected to fetch £60,000-80,000.

Henniker, who was born in Minehead in Somerset in 1906. He advanced to Lieutenant Colonel, and in the autumn of 1941 became one of the founder members, and part of the skeleton Divisional Staff, of the fledgling 1st Airborne Division. Henniker, flanked by others such as “Boy” Browning and Urquhart, was originally employed as SO RE. He subsequently advanced to Chief Royal Engineer (CRE), 1st Airborne Division, and was a member of ‘The Dungeon Party’. The latter was the term coined in later years by Browning, for the original command staff and the accommodation in which they were initially set up - two floors below ground level in a building in King Charles Street, Whitehall.

He honed his skills on the North West Frontier, and successfully escaped with his men from the beaches of Dunkirk in a rowing boat! As the first Chief Royal Engineer, 1st Airborne Division, Brigadier Sir Mark Henniker was integral to the planning of the famous Bruneval Raid, February 1942, and the attempted destruction of the Heavy Water Production Plant at Telemark, Norway in November of the same year. He once again helped plan the airborne element of the invasion of Sicily and took part in the airborne landings of Operation Husky, flying in by glider as part of HQ 1st Airlanding Brigade, in July 1943.

However, the pinnacle of his career was when serving as C.R.E., 43rd (Wessex Division) during Operation Market Garden. Henniker was responsible for the planning and execution of Operation Berlin - the iconic night-time evacuation of the remnants of the beleaguered 1st Airborne Division under Roy Urquhart; trapped in German-occupied territory north of the Lower Rhine and just West of Arnhem. On the night of 25/26 September 1944, Henniker executed his intricate plan and secured the rescue of some 2,400 men across the Lower Rhine, in all manner of boats and rafts - all under heavy fire, and all personally directed by him throughout the night from his position on the riverbank
As Mark Quayle, Medal Specialist and Associate Director of Noonans noted: “This is an outstanding group of medals, and of particular importance. Brigadier Sir Mark Henniker’s involvement in all things Airborne during the Second World War must be without parallel. A key strategist, planner, and an undoubted man of action who came to the fore time and time again - often ‘swathed in bandages’. His finest hour came when he masterminded the daring night-time rescue of the beleaguered remnants of the British 1st Airborne Division from Arnhem in September 1944.’

A member of the family commented: “It is important to us that the heroics displayed by the British Airborne Forces during the Second World War, and the sacrifices made by them, continue to live on in the public conscious for generations to come. By selling these medals now we hope to highlight their story, and at the same time secure the safekeeping of Sir Mark’s medals for the long-term future.”

After a long military career, he died in October 1991, aged 85, and is buried in Saint Peter's Church, Llanwenarth Citra, Abergavenny.

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