Home

About Us

Subscribe


Advertise

Other Publications

Diary

Notices

Offers

Gallery

More Features

People, Places & Events

Obituaries

Book Reviews

Forthcoming Publications

Contact


Advertisers



Lieutenant Colonel P H Haslett MBE
Late Grenadier Guards
by Major P A J Wright OBE
formerly Grenadier Guards


Philip Haslett, who has died aged 88, was born on 7th January 1927. He was the only son of Sir William Haslett, a specialist in mental and neurological disorders. His mother was a niece of Sir Claude ‘Crawley’ Champion de Crespigny. He was educated at Marlborough and commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 28th September 1945. In 1949, he commanded a platoon on operations with 3rd Battalion, patrolling against bandit gangs around Sungei Besi during the Malaya Emergency. He returned there some 45 years later and asked the friendly villagers how they had fared since the Emergency. They cheerfully replied that they were too young to remember it.

In 1954, he was selected to be Adjutant of Mons Officer Cadet School. He returned to 3rd Battalion as Support Company Commander in 1957, during the Cyprus Emergency. The tour involved cordon and search operations in Nicosia and the surrounding area. Over several months, the Army had reduced 16 terrorist gangs to five; 69 EOKA had been killed and rioting and looting virtually stopped. In 1959, he was appointed Captain of the Queen’s Company at Tidworth before deploying to Bamenda in the British Cameroons in West Africa in 1961. A terrorist camp was located on the border with the French Cameroons. Philip personally led a close reconnaissance patrol before the camp was successfully attacked and two terrorists killed with the loss of one Guardsman. He was appointed MBE in the New Year Honours 1962.

After flying to Libya on a training exercise and a tour in Wuppertal, BAOR, as Senior Major 2nd Battalion, Philip was appointed Brigade Major of Berlin Infantry Brigade in 1965. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed Commanding Officer 2nd Battalion at Chelsea Barracks in 1969. In August, the Battalion was unexpectedly placed on Spearhead and deployed to Northern Ireland where there was a real danger of civil war. Both in Londonderry and Belfast the soldiers were at first made welcome, but it did not last. However, at the end of the five month tour it had not proved necessary to fire CS gas or live ammunition and tension gradually subsided. This was in no small part due to his calm and sensible leadership.

Following further appointments in the Ministry of Defence, he retired from the Army in 1977. In retirement he was an enthusiastic bridge player, gardener, ornithologist and traveller. One notable journey involved trekking in the Himalayas and visiting the base of Mount Annapurna. A kind and considerate man, he was President of the Weybridge Branch of the Royal British Legion and a volunteer guide at Painshill Park. He attended Her Majesty’s Grenadier Day at Buckingham Palace on 26th June 2013 and, together with other former Captains of the Queen’s Company, was presented to the Queen. A charming, unassuming and delightful Grenadier with an excellent sense of humour who, for an obvious reason, was affectionately nicknamed ‘Chrome Dome’. A lifelong bachelor, he is survived and much missed by his three sisters, Mary Camilla, Rosemary and Barbara, their children, his many friends and his devoted carers, Melissa Phillips and Karen Fourie, who attended to him over the last few years.


© Crown Copyright