Incredible tale of soldier who stayed at his post as he wreaked havoc for the Germans
MIDLAND butcher John Baskeyfield was the hero who stared death in the eye even as a remarkable feat of bravery claimed his life.
The fair-haired soldier known for his broad smile stood less than 5ft 7ins tall. But, in the aftermath of the 1944 Arnhem landings in Holland, he was a giant among men.
During battle – 75 years ago next month – one after another of his crew were killed or badly hurt until he was the lone survivor.
It was then that he suffered a crippling wound to his right leg – but refused to be carried to the Regimental Aid Post.
Instead he:
Propped himself up to check that his gun could still be fired;
Shouted encouragement to men in neighbouring trenches;
Kept enemy tanks at bay until his gun was knocked out ;
Weak from loss of blood, dragged himself to another gun emplacement;
Hit one Tiger tank and stopped two self-propelled guns in their tracks.
It was only as Baskeyfield struggled to load another shell that he was killed outright by a direct hit from a tank.
Little wonder that Lance-Sergeant John Baskeyfield was posthumously awarded the 117th Victoria Cross of World War Two.
Five of those VCs were given for the airborne landings at Arnhem 75 years ago, four of them posthumously.
His story, however, had humble
beginnings. He was the son of Minnie and Daniel Baskeyfield, a pottery worker at Burslem’s Price Brothers Potters in Stoke-in-Trent.
Born at 69 Commercial Road, Baskeyfield had two sisters, Vera and Gladys, and two brothers, George and Ray.
He was educated at St John Day School, Burslem, and Cobridge Church Day School. He left school at the age of 14, and was taken on as an errand and delivery boy at the Co-operative butcher’s shop in Newport Lane, Middleport, and worked at other branches as a butchery cutter.
Baskeyfield eventually became the manager of the Pittshill butcher’s shop of the Burslem and District Co-operative society.
In February 1942, Baskeyfield joined up in Shrewsbury, was accepted in the North Staffordshire Regiment, and was sent to 20 Infantry Training Centre.
He transferred to the 11th South Staffordshire Regiment on June 30, 1942, and on February 8, 1943, his request for a transfer to the 2nd Battalion South Staffords was agreed.
He wanted to transfer because it had become an airborne unit and Baskeyfield, like many other officers and soldiers, believed the airborne to be the bravest and toughest.
He first went overseas in May 1943, taking part in the North Africa air landings. During an airlift to Sicily his glider, of which he was second-in-command, crashed into the sea and he was eight and a half hours in the water before being rescued by a naval launch. He subsequently served in Italy.
Baskeyfield was promoted to lance-corporal on January 5, 1944, and corporal on June 30, 1944, and finally to lance-sergeant in July 1944.
At the end of July 1944, the 2nd Battalion South Staffords anti-tank team entered a gunnery competition, and Baskeyfield’s crew came first. He joined S (Support) Company as part of a four-gun anti-tank platoon, and he and his gun crew were in the air landings at Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden.
It was on the morning after landing, September 20, that the antitank teams and infantry began to advance towards their main objective – to capture intact the bridge at Arnhem.
Baskeyfield was in charge of a sixpounder field gun at Oosterbeek, to the west of Arnhem on the Lower Rhine, which three days after the initial landings was within a British perimeter shrinking under attacks from heavy German armour. The other two gun crew commanders were Corporal William Wade and Corporal Len Hutton.
The anti-tank group commander was Captain Geoffrey Calvin Woodward from Abingdon.
As German opposition stiffened and enemy counter-attacks grew in strength, defensive positions were set up in Oosterbeek near to the railway.
Around mid-morning an order was received to withdraw the infantry into the Van Hofwegen laundry, led by South Staffords officers Major Cain, who would also receive a VC, and Major John “Jock” Stuart Aitchison Buchanan.
Buchanan escaped across the river and would be awarded the Distinguished Service Order. The antitank guns were positioned with a good field of fire to oppose the German advance, which began just before noon, but John Baskeyfield realised he was faced by forces gathering for an all-out attack.
As the onslaught developed that afternoon, his crew destroyed at least one self-propelled gun. Baskeyfield tried to ensure first-time hits by allowing the enemy tanks, with their rapid-fire cannons, to come within 100 yards of his position.
One enemy self-propelled gun was hit at least six times. But his crew were steadily picked off. Despite the crippling wound to his right leg, he refused to be carried to safety and instead propped himself up to check that his gun could still be fired, and shouted vital encouragement to men in neighbouring trenches, stiffening their resolve.
The enemy renewed the attack with even greater ferocity, this time under a lethal steel curtain of rolling mortar fire.
Behind the scant cover of the battered gun shield, Baskeyfield was by now quite alone, but fired round after round at the advancing Germans.
The VC citation confirms: “By this time, his activity was the main factor in keeping the enemy tanks at bay.
“The fact that the surviving men in his vicinity were held together and kept in action was undoubtedly due to his magnificent example and outstanding courage. Time after time, enemy attacks were launched and driven off.”
Inevitably, Baskeyfield’s gun was eventually knocked out.
Although the wreckage was still the focus of intense fire, he dragged himself to another emplacement, where a neighbouring six-pounder was surrounded by the bodies of its crew, including its commander Lance-Sergeant Mansell.
With a Sturmgeschutze III selfpropelled gun bearing down upon him, Baskeyfield carried out desperate checks to discover if the field gun could still fire.
Weak from loss of blood, the Midland hero managed to lift two rounds into the breach, hit one Tiger tank and stopped two self-propelled guns in their tracks.
As he struggled to load another shell, he was killed by a direct hit from a Tiger tank that had been moving up to support the German self-propelled gun. And then the German attack petered out.
John Baskeyfield’s gallant, but ultimately tragic, stand against German tanks and self-propelled guns, was sketched at the time by The Illustrated London News’s special war artist, Bryan de Grineau and shows Baskeyfield just moments before he lost his life.
The drawing was so impressive that artist Terence Cuneo was commissioned in 1970 by the Staffordshire Regimental Association to enhance the monochrome sketch into a colour painting (pictured above), and it went on a tour of Europe, including Berlin.
Baskeyfield lay dead near his destroyed anti-tank gun for the rest of the fighting, but his body was never officially found.
Corporal Raymond Cornby, a prisoner of war ordered by the Germans to collect and bury the dead, reported he had found and buried a headless body near the gun position.