His Superb Fighting Spirit

Lance-Sergeant J. D. Baskeyfield VC

Operation Market Garden, launched on 17 September 1944, was an Allied attempt to seize a series of strategic bridges through the Netherlands to break into Nazi Germany and end the war sooner. The plan was for three giant airborne raids, consisting of thousands of paratroopers and glider borne troops, to seize and hold the bridges, while an armoured column would punch its way north through the intervening German troops and link up with the lightly armed airborne forces before they were overrun. American paratroops dropped at Eindhoven and Nijmegen succeeded in capturing and holding their positions until the armoured column arrived. However, the British 1st Airborne Division, assigned to capture the furthest target, the road bridge at Arnhem, faced difficulties from the start, with many paratroopers and gliders landing far from their target. Only one battalion, under Major John Frost, reached Arnhem, but they could not secure the bridge. The rest of the Division, including several battalions of the Paras and the 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment, all under the command of General Roy Urquhart, were stuck outside the town, facing transport and communication issues and fierce enemy resistance.

On 19 September, General Urquhart attempted to reach Frost and his men in Arnhem, but the British suffered heavy losses against German armour. Urquhart therefore pulled his men back to Oosterbeek, a suburb of Arnhem, hoping to establish a bridgehead against the river until ground forces arrived. The Paras and South Staffords created a perimeter at the edge of Oosterbeek, bringing in artillery to cover the main roads and snipe German tanks when they came. At 11:15 a.m., eight anti-tank guns from the South Staffords were moved forward, with two of their 6-pounder guns positioned at the T-junction of Benedendorpsweg and Acacialaan to take on any German armour moving in from the north-east, while other guns covered their flank and troops in trenches and nearby buildings prepared to support the gunners and confront any enemy infantry.

In charge of the two guns facing up Acacialaan was 21-year-old Lance-Sergeant John Daniel Baskeyfield of the South Staffords’ Anti-Tank Platoon. Born on 18 November 1922, ‘Jack’ Baskeyfield was the eldest of five children born to Daniel and Minnie Baskeyfield of Burslem. Educated at Burslem St John’s School and Christ Church, Cobridge, for several years he was a choirboy at Cobridge Church. Starting work as an errand boy, he later trained as a butcher and briefly managed a co-op butchers in Pittshill. He was called up for the army in February 1942 and served with the 2nd South Staffords in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy before participating in Operation Market Garden. No stranger to peril, during the North Africa campaign, a glider that Jack was aboard crashed into the sea and he spent 8 hours in the water before being picked up by a launch. Evidently a good soldier, he had achieved the rank of lance-sergeant through merit and during the ferocious battle that would take place around his guns the next day, his ability to lead and inspire those around him would prove him worthy of the rank.

The statue depicting Jack Baskeyfield at Festival Park, Etruria

By nightfall on the 19th, British forces in Oosterbeek had been heavily pounded by artillery and mortar fire, resulting in significant losses. On the 20th, German forces attacked the eastern side of the perimeter with infantry, tanks, and self-propelled guns, aiming to overrun the weakened British position. Despite the heavy fire, the British airborne soldiers fought back fiercely, particularly Baskeyfield and his crew, who are said to have destroyed two Tiger tanks and a self-propelled gun. Their success, though, came at a heavy cost, the gun crew being either killed or badly injured in the fighting, Jack being seriously wounded in the leg. In the lull that followed the initial German attack, Jack refused to be carried off to the Regimental First Aid post and instead manned his gun alone, shouting encouragement to the men in nearby buildings and trenches. When the Germans returned with even greater ferocity, Baskeyfield fired round after round until his gun was finally put out of action.

Pulling himself away from the wreckage and under intense enemy fire, Jack crawled across the road to the other gun, Corporal Hutton's 6-pounder, the crew of which now lay dead around it. Again, he manned the gun alone, though another soldier tried to crawl across the road to help him, but he was killed almost immediately. Undaunted, Jack carried on, engaging another enemy self-propelled gun that was moving in to attack. He managed to get off two rounds, one of which scored a direct hit on the vehicle, rendering it ineffective, but, sadly, whilst loading for a third shot, he was killed by a shell from a supporting enemy tank.

There is some question over the number or type of ‘kills’ that Jack and his men gained, but there is no disputing that the terrific stand he made inspired nearby troops and bolstered that part of the perimeter. This undoubtedly helped in preventing the Germans from cutting the 1st Airborne Division from the Rhine, across which the survivors of Urquhart’s forces escaped several days later. For by 25 September, the desperate struggle for Arnhem was over, and Major Frost's men had been forced to surrender. Hundreds of soldiers and over 400 Dutch civilians had been killed, thousands more wounded and Arnhem and its suburbs were wrecked and littered with bodies, many mangled beyond recognition. Corporal Raymond Corneby and other captured troops were working to gather up bodies where Baskeyfield and his men had fallen, when he found just such a corpse, a battered, headless body by the wreckage of a gun, which he buried in a nearby garden. From the evidence Corneby found on the body it seems very likely that this was Jack Baskeyfield, whose remains now lie in an unknown grave. His name appears on panel 5 of the CWGC Groesbeek Memorial to the Missing. 

The modern day juction of Benedendorpsweg looking up Acacialaan - which was then much more open - from where the German tanks were approaching. Baskeyfield's final position was on the left where the 'Jack Baskeyfield Tree' now stands.

Source: Google Earth

Despite his body being lost, Jack's deeds were not forgotten, and word of his bravery spread quickly. A week after the battle, war artist Bryan de Grineau drew a sketch of the action for the Illustrated London News and official reports were made on Baskeyfield's behalf, with the recommendation that he be posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. This was granted, and the London Gazette carried the official citation for his award five days after what would have been his 22nd birthday. This outlined the action and Jack Baskeyfield’s doggedness in carrying out his duty in defending the road junction, his determination to carry on even though badly wounded and it praised ‘his superb fighting spirit’ which inspired all who witnessed his stand. Back home, though his parents and siblings were devastated by the news of his death, they were immensely proud at the news that Jack had been awarded the Victoria Cross. At an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 17 July 1945, Daniel and Minnie Baskeyfield received their son’s medal from King George VI and soon after the war they took a trip to the Netherlands to see where their son had died. Jack Baskeyfield’s VC is today in the keeping of the Staffordshire Regiment Museum at Whittington near Lichfield.

Pride was felt across the Potteries at Jack’s incredible bravery. A memorial fund was set up, a mural was raised in his honour at one of his old schools and his name continues to be used proudly around the city in streets, buildings, an Army Reserve Centre and for a while a local school. In 1966, a local amateur film maker Bill Townley began filming a well-produced cinematic depiction of Jack’s deeds entitled ‘Baskeyfield VC’, which received it’s first public airing in 1969 and is still available to buy on DVD. Official memorials also appeared. A plaque dedicated to the town’s medal winner sits near to Burslem’s war memorial on Swan Bank, but surprisingly the most notable memorial was erected not in Burslem, but at Festival Heights in Etruria. Unveiled in 1990, the twice-life size statue of Jack Baskeyfield sculpted by Steven Whyte and Michael Talbot, has him in action, shell in hand in the act of loading his gun; a brave man, defiant to the end. 

Reference: Andy Saunders (Ed.),Victoria Cross (magazine), pp.96-99; Evening Sentinel, 24 November 1944 p.1 and p.4; Evening Sentinel, 18 July 1945.

Reg Mitchell Takes the Proverbial

Colin Melbourne's statue of R. J. Mitchell
outside the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery,
Hanley.

In 1911, long before he went on to design his world-beating racing planes and later the Supermarine Spitfire, 16 year old Reginald Joseph Mitchell, served a local apprenticeship. Originally from Butt Lane near Kidsgrove, but raised in Normacot, Reg was enrolled as a lowly apprentice engineer at Messrs Kerr, Stuart and Co, locomotive engineers in Fenton. Before moving on to the drawing office where he would make his name, he like the other apprentices had to spend time in the workshops getting his hands dirty working on the firm's machines. Reg's pragmatic father Herbert saw this as a sensible grounding for his ambitious son, but young Mitchell loathed this introduction to his profession, hating the grime-caked overalls he had to wear and the monotony of the work that kept him from what he really wanted to do. He was also less than enamoured with the workshop foreman.

One of the first jobs that Reg had when he started at Kerr, Stuart was the traditional one of tea boy, brewing up for the other apprentices and the foreman, the latter, though regularly complained that Mitchell's tea tasted like piss. Tired of his grumbling, Reg decided that if that was what he thought, then that was what he would get. The next morning Reg arrived at work and as normal took the kettle to the wash room, but instead of filling it with water he urinated into it, then boiled the kettle and made tea. Warning his fellow apprentices not to drink, Reg served the foreman as usual. The man took a sip, then a larger gulp and said, “Bloody good cup of tea, Mitchell, why can't you make it like this every day?” 

Reference: Gordon Mitchell, R.J. Mitchell, from Schooldays to Spitfire, pp. 21- 25

Cannons from the Crimea

Standing outside of the Brampton Museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme is a large black-painted cannon, mounted on a cast-iron limber. This was one of thousands of similar pieces of war booty brought back from the Crimea, following the fall of the Russian citadel of Sevastopol in 1855. In that city the Allied armies had discovered a large ordnance depot filled with 4,000 damaged or obsolete guns and these along with many of the guns captured during the fighting were later used as ballast on the merchantmen and troopships when they were bringing the army home. The Crimean War (1854-1856), had been a horrendous and utterly pointless conflict and perhaps as part of a wider public relations exercise to calm the national anger at the lives lost and at just how badly the war had been run, these cannon were freely distributed to towns and cities around the country.

Newcastle's cannon, weighing 2.8 tons is a 36 pounder made in 1840, and was presented to the Borough in 1857 by its then MP Samuel Christy. It was originally situated in Stubbs Walks, opposite the Orme Girl's School, Newcastle, where it stood until 1965, when it was moved to its current location. Such was the fate of most of these retired instruments of war and in the latter half of the nineteenth century it was no unusual thing to find a large, defunct piece of Russian artillery decorating a municipal park or fronting some grand civic building anywhere in Britain. Today, though, they are not so common; time and necessity have seen many of the others scattered or scrapped over the years and such seems to have been the case with a couple of cannons that came to the Potteries, no trace of which now seems to exist.

Newcastle's impressive Russia cannon in situ. The carriage was mass-produced at the Royal Armouries in Woolwich.

In his autobiography Past Years, Potteries-born scientist Oliver Lodge, mentioned a close encounter with a Russian cannon in his youth. Lodge recalled that at a very young age his father took him from their home in Penkhull down the steep hill to Stoke where peace celebrations marking the end of the Crimean War were taking place. A captured Russian cannon had been placed in front of the Wheatsheaf Hotel and Mr Lodge told his son to wait by the cannon until he came back for him. Looking up at the monstrous artillery piece, young Oliver wondered what they were going to do with the gun, half fearing but half hoping that they were going to fire it. However, nothing so exciting happened, instead the local dignitaries made several speeches before they all set off for lunch. Oliver's father went with them, minus his boy, and afterwards in the evening he went home having completely forgotten about Oliver. Only after returning home and being asked by his wife where their son was did he suddenly remember and went dashing off back down the bank to find the lad still obediently standing by the gun, utterly unconcerned at being left alone for several hours after everyone else had departed. 

The Victoria History of Staffordshire notes that a Russian cannon was presented to the town by W. T. Copeland in 1857 and erected opposite the Wheatsheaf Hotel in 1858, as per Lodge's memoirs. In 1858, the Illustrated London News carried an interesting illustration of what was called Stoke-upon-Trent's 'Russian trophy', along with some background information.

Author's collection

'RUSSIAN TROPHY AT STOKE-UPON-TRENT.' 

'We give a representation of the Russian Trophy as mounted and in closed at Stoke-upon-Trent a few weeks ago. The gun is placed on a stone platform, as shown in the Illustration, in which the Royal arms, in Minton's tiles, is inserted. On the stone parapet an ornamental railing of a handsome pattern is placed, and at each angle of the square of the platform a pillar in cast iron rises, to carry the wrought-iron scrollwork, which was manufactured by Mr. Haslam, of Derby, and is an excellent specimen of the old art of ironworking, now so ex­tensively superseded by the process of casting. All the ironwork is coloured in imitation of Florentine bronze, and richly gilt in the more decorative parts of the design. The whole is surmounted by a large globe lamp, which forms the principal feature of the construction, as the erection, being placed at the junction of three streets, requires a prominent and well adapted mode of lighting. The trophy was in­augurated by Mr. Alderman Copeland, one of the members for the borough, who also defrayed the expenses connected with mounting the piece. The work was designed and carried out under Mr. Edgar, architect.'

Longton also received a gun, but even less is known about that one. There is a brief note in the Staffordshire Sentinel in 1867 that reads: 'The same committee reported a resolution, in accordance with a suggestion from the Council, to remove the Russian cannon from the front of the Town Hall to the space within the railings at the front of the Court House... The proceedings were approved, and the recommendation adopted.' In his Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, E. J. D. Warrilow includes a photograph of Longton Court House with the cannon situated behind the railings as described, but a second photo taken in 1950 shows that the gun had been removed. It was resited to Queen's Park, Longton, where it stood in front of the clock tower. However, it has long since vanished and its current whereabouts are unknown.

Stoke's gun was also later moved, to a site in Hill Street by the old town hall in about 1874, but what finally happened to this and Longton's cannon is unknown. The most likely scenario is that the valuable metal was sacrificed to the war effort early in World War Two, and ironically perhaps went on to become part of a more modern arsenal. 

Contrast this sad end with that of the Newcastle gun which has achieved a certain status in the area. Between 1919 to 1942, during its time in Stubb's Walks, the cannon was joined by a World War One training tank as a companion, but the tank was sent to be scrapped during World War Two. When the Crimean gun was shifted from its original site in 1965 some feared that it too was destined to be melted down and contractors arrived to find that some of the pupils from the Orme Girl's School had hung a notice on the gun - 'Hands off our cannon'. They need not have worried. Today, the cannon points out over the Brampton Park, providing a striking and novel photo opportunity to visitors to the town's museum. 

Reference: Oliver Lodge, Past Years: An Autobiography (Cambridge, 1931) pp. 22-23. E. J. D. Warrillow, A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, p.385, Illustrated London News, 12 June 1858, Staffordshire Sentinel, 6 July 1867, Victoria History of Staffordshire Vol. VIII., p.180.

Website: Crimean Cannon International Database