Born: 20th March 1914.
Story
Bernard was the son of Luke Henshaw (1878-1958) a coal miner originally from Featherstone, and Annie Horton (1881-1947), who married in Kippax on 23rd September 1899, and the family lived Mount Pleasant, Kippax. Before the War, Bernard worked as a cutter for a Tailor. He was a paratrooper at the Normandy Beach landings on 6th June 1944, taking part in Operation Tonga, which was undertaken by the British 6th Airborne Division as part of Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings.
The paratroopers and glider-borne airborne troops of the division, commanded by Major-General Richard Nelson Gale, landed on the eastern flank of the invasion area, near to the city of Caen, tasked with a number of objectives. The division was to capture two strategically important bridges over the Caen Canal and Orne River which were to be used by Allied ground forces to advance once the seaborne landings had taken place, destroy several other bridges to deny their use to the Germans and secure several important villages. The division was also assigned the task of destroying the Merville Gun Battery, an artillery battery that Allied intelligence believed housed a number of heavy artillery pieces, which could bombard the nearest invasion beach (codenamed Sword) and possibly inflict heavy casualties on the Allied troops landing on it. Having achieved these objectives, the division was then to create and secure a bridgehead focused around the captured bridges until they linked up with advancing Allied ground forces. Bernard later confirmed that he had sank a German gunboat, and held up a bridge. He was reported injured on 3rd July 1944, and transferred back to Manchester hospital. After the War, Bernard married Mary Silverwood in 1947. They lived at 3 Maltkiln Lane, and Bernard passed away in 1994.
Below: 6th June 1944, British paratroopers of 22nd Independent Parachute Company synchronising their watches:
Kippax Roll of Honour 