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Sapper Frederick Henry Hanslip
Unit : 591st Parachute Squadron RE / 286th (Airborne) Field Park Company, RE
Army No. : 1894225
Harry Hanslip was born in Grimsby in 1918, and attended St Mary's Roman Catholic School. He worked as a factory builder, specialising in furnace brickwork, and before the war was involved in the building of the Westward Ho! barracks in Grimsby, and at its commencement the construction of the married quarters at Binbrook and Scampton aerodromes. During a visit to Whitley Bay he met Eveline Foster at the Empress Ballroom, they married in October 1941, and their first son, Malcolm Henry Hanslip, was born on the 5th July 1942.
Sapper Harry Hanslip is believed to have served with the 591st Parachute Squadron from 1943 onwards but appears to have at least been attached to the 286th Field Park Company during the Normandy campaign. He took-off from Brize Norton in a Horsa glider and landed with the first lift on LZ-N at approximately 03:20 on the 6th June. He was probably involved in the clearing of landing strips on LZ-N using the bulldozers of the 286th Field Park Company, as he was with the commander of this detachment, Lieutenant Reid, when he was killed by machine-gun fire on the zone. Brigadier Lowman, the Commander Royal Engineers, in this report describing the efforts of the 6th Airborne Division's engineers in Normandy, made the following reference to Hanslip:
It would be an omission in this account of the work of 286 Field Park Company RE (Airborne) not to mention the Memorial Cross. Sadly the temporary divisional burial ground at Ranville began to fill and later in June 1944, when there was a lull in the battle, the CRE approached the Divisional Commander and Senior Chaplain, George Hales with a design for a simple temporary memorial cross sketched on the back of a message form. Both readily agreed. The cross was actually made by Sapper Hanslip RE of cement cast in moulds and speckled with coal dust to simulate marble. A Pegasus and "6 June 1944" were attached, made from copper compressed air bottles salvaged from derelict gliders, beaten flat and stippled with the Pegasus design and lettering. The cross was erected on 24 June 1944 and consecrated by the Senior Chaplain. The burial ground became a permanent War Graves site and the cross was still standing thirty years after - and still is, it is believed - a fine tribute to Sapper Hanslip's workmanship. In the days when the annual Airborne Pilgrimage took place, the service in the cemetery was always held round this memorial cross rather than the much larger formal one erected by the War Graves Commission.
The following is an article from an unknown newspaper published on the 8th June 1994.
Glider into a hail of bullets
Harry Hanslip is absolutely bursting with D-Day. No memory problems here. Sapper Hanslip, 76 now and one of the very first men to land in France on D-Day recalls events in detail. He is the keenest Old Comrade the Royal Engineers can have and is a frequent visitor to his old stamping grounds near Caen. He's not going this year but he'll be there next.
Harry was one of the airborne troops flown in by glider at dead of night with the express intention of taking a bridge the Germans had prepared for demolition. Harry had to stop them doing just that. And he did. And he's rightly very proud of it.
Harry and his wife live, with their splendid little dog, in Barncroft Street, Cleethorpes and Mrs Hanslip has heard all about her husband's exploits before - several times. She made me a cup of tea. Her husband is a vigorous man, 28 years the senior bricklayer at Courtaulds until his retirement in 1981. Grimsby born, schooled at St Mary's RC, who began his war building married quarters at Binbrook and Scampton aerodromes. Then he joined the Royal Engineers and his life was transformed. When the call came for paratroopers he volunteered and trained in Hotspur, Horsa and Hannibal gliders. It was precarious stuff.
At midnight on D-Day he and 20 sappers huddled in a Horsa as it trundled in tow from a Halifax bomber across the runways at Brize Norton. An hour later they touched down. The war had begun. It was 1am. Not all the gliders made such satisfactory landings. There were many casualties. Under machine gun fire and in the cover afford by a field of long hay, Harry crawled to safety. His officer was shot dead at his side. Harry sought cover alongside the corpse. Until the rest of his unit, 591 RE Coy (Airborne), caught up with them from the beaches, Harry and 30 of his chums were attached to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. But the bridge at Ranville wasn't blown and Caen fell eventually. The locals called it Pegasus Bridge (after the Airborne Division's cap badge) from then on.
Months later, after Paris had fallen, 6th Airborne Division of which Harry had been a part, was ordered home. Harry went with them but not before returning to Ranville where, to commemorate the many dead in his unit's desperate D-Day fighting, he built a cross in the churchyard. He's good with his hands although he never expected ever to see the cross again. It's still there. Harry has been back to see it. It's well looked after.
Harry Hanslip never misses the Royal Engineers Association reunion in London and can be found, every month at the local association meeting at Westward Ho! Barracks in Grimsby. It's a fitting place for him to be. For Harry actually built the barracks before the war. Wherever he's been with the army, soldier or civilian, he's made his mark.
After the war, Harry Hanslip moved to Melton Mowbray, and worked in steel factories in Corby. His youngest son, Hilary, was born in 1947. The family subsequently moved to Cleethorpes, and he worked as a senior bricklayer at Courtaulds until his retirement in 1981. He passed away in Grimsby in 1999, at the age of 81.