REVIEW: ORDERS DECORATIONS, MEDALS MILITARIA: 14 FEBRUARY

Few military leaders can have been as personally involved in so many heroic wartime missions as the man whose C.B.E. and D.S.O., M.C. group of 12 medals took £100,000 in this 14 February auction.

The extremely important and rare group of 12 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 – sold to a Private Collector against an estimate of £60,000-80,000.

Henniker, who was born in Minehead in Somerset in 1906, counted the famous Bruneval Raid, of February 1942, among the daring missions he helped plan, as well as the attempted destruction of the Heavy Water Production Plant at Telemark, Norway in November that year.

Earlier, he had escaped with his men from the beaches of Dunkirk in a rowing boat, and in 1943 he played a major role in the invasion of Sicily.

Having honed his skills on the North West Frontier, following Dunkirk and advanced to Lieutenant Colonel, in the autumn of Henniker 1941 became one of the founder members, and part of the skeleton Divisional Staff, of the fledgling 1st Airborne Division.

Serving with “Boy” Browning and Urquhart, he was originally employed as SO RE before becoming 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.

As the first Chief Royal Engineer, 1st Airborne Division, Brigadier Sir Mark Henniker, he was integral to Bruneval and Telemark before helping to plan the airborne element of the invasion of Sicily, taking part in the airborne landings of Operation Husky himself, flying in by glider as part of HQ 1st Airlanding Brigade, in July 1943.

Despite being wounded by shrapnel and breaking his arm, the unit Henniker was with captured an Italian Coastal Battery and took over 90 Prisoners of War. Commandeering an airborne engineer with a motorcycle, Henniker made his way to the Ponte Grande to ensure that the enemy demolition charges had been removed. He then joined up with the landing force and made his way to assist in the relief of the 1st Parachute Brigade at Primosole Bridge. He ‘continued to fight, though swathed in bandages’.

Henniker went on to take a prominent part in the seaborne landings at Taranto, coming to the rescue of survivors of the stricken H.M.S. Abdiel in a dinghy that had to negotiate a partly cleared minefield on 10 September 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. He was made an immediate award of the DSO.

The London Gazette of 1 March 1945 reported: “The entire arrangements for launching the boats, taping the routes and bringing back officers and men were the responsibility of Lt. Col Henniker. This officer planned the operation, using every conceivable type of boat and raft and personally directed the work throughout the night from the river bank – often under heavy and accurate mortar and MG fire. His example, and fine control, were throughout an inspiration to all and acted as a stimulus to the many feats of bravery performed by all ranks. I regard this officer’s splendid work as the main factor in the successful rescue of between 2000 and 3000 All Ranks of the 1st Airborne Div. His fine leadership and disregard of his own safety were in the best traditions of The Corps.” 

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