While defending the Oosterbeek perimeter three days into the battle, Baskeyfield commanded a pair of anti-tank guns that destroyed several enemy tanks before the crews were killed.

[2] He trained and worked as a butcher during the early years of the Second World War, until he received his call up papers in February 1942 at the age of 19.

The division then landed in Italy as part of Operation Slapstick and spent some weeks fighting their way through the country before sailing back to England.

At Arnhem the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade were tasked with securing bridges across the Lower Rhine, the final objectives of the operation.

[4] Their presence added a substantial number of Panzergrenadiers, tanks and self-propelled guns to the German defences and the Allies suffered heavily in the ensuing battle.

[7] Major General Roy Urquhart's original plan envisaged the 1st Airlanding Brigade securing the drop zones for subsequent lifts,[8] but by the end of day one the Allied advance into Arnhem had stalled.

Only a small group of the 1st Parachute Brigade, mainly elements of Lieutenant Colonel John Frost's 2nd Battalion, were able to reach the bridge.

[9] The 1st and 3rd Battalions were unable to penetrate the outer suburbs of the city and their advance stalled, so in order to support them the first lift of the South Stafford's were sent forward on the morning of 18 September.

[12] In the early hours of the morning of 19 September, an attack was launched on a narrow front between the river and the railway line, in order to force a passage through to the bridge.

[21] Baskeyfield allowed the armour to come within 100 yards of his positions before ordering his crews to fire, while paratroopers of the 11th Battalion in nearby houses dealt with attacking infantry.

The enemy developed a major attack on this sector with infantry, tanks and self-propelled guns with the obvious intent to break into and overrun the Battalion position.

During the brief respite after this engagement Lance-Sergeant Baskeyfield refused to be carried to the Regimental Aid Post and spent his time attending to his gun and shouting encouragement to his comrades in neighbouring trenches.

He spurned danger, ignored pain and, by his supreme fighting spirit, infected all who witnessed his conduct with the same aggressiveness and dogged devotion to duty which characterised his actions throughout.After Arnhem was liberated in April 1945, Grave Registration Units of the British 2nd Army moved into the area and began to locate the Allied dead.

[27] Instead Baskeyfield's name is inscribed on the Groesbeek Memorial[2] which commemorates all those Allied servicemen killed between August 1944 and the end of the conflict who have no known grave.

[28] Four more VCs were awarded after the battle, including one for Major Robert Cain, commander of B Company, 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment.

[30] A twice life size memorial statue of him was erected in 1990 at Festival Heights in Stoke-on-Trent, by sculptors Steven Whyte and Michael Talbot.