This page is Dedicated to Two Soldiers
Lance-Corporal Walter Stanley has no known grave
Lance-Sergeant John Baskeyfield has no known grave
Wednesday saw more action on the still developing eastern side of the perimeter. In particular the Germans made a determined push against the forward force on the lower road, which was now under the command of Major Lonsdale. Soon after dawn the Germans commenced a series of infantry and tank attacks. Private Jim Gardner of the 1st Battalion was there:
They came at us with all the fury they could muster. We got out of our trenches to meet the infantry and more than held our own but we gave ground against tanks. Between the mist from the river, the explosions of mortars and shells, etc, we could not see one another after a while it was a mixture of dust, smike and fog. I felt oddly alone, when out of the smoke,etc, a figure emerged with a rifle and bayonet out in front of him. I waited a while to be sure who was there. At about four or five feet I could see by the helmet that he was one of 'theirs' I turned to face him, but he stopped in his tracks and, relizing who was confronting him, and turned and scarpered back into the smoke.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Private David Warden of the 3rd Battalion was concussed by a tank fire while in a position with other 3rd Battalion men alongside a ditch in the fields north of the river:
When I recovered I heard a sound from Lance-Corporal Stanley. Both his legs were in muddy water, which was about three feet deep. He was about to pitch forward when I grasped his waist and held him, with both of us standing in the water. He appeared to be in deep shock but, nevertheless, he knew he was dying and spoke of his wife. He then sang five or six lines of a song 'I'll walk beside you in the years to come'. When it was odvious that he was dead I left his body leaning against the side of the ditch. He died a very brave man indeed. I heard later that this incident of him singing was talked abbout in the POW camps.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Lance-Corporal Walter Stanley has no known grave
These attacks were beaten off. The 3rd Battalion's report credits a mortar sergeant of the 1st Battalion, Dick Whittingham, with effective work against the German infantry. He had found a jeep loaded with 3-inch mortar bombs and fired off nearly all of them. The tanks were stopped largely by the effort of Lance-Sergeant John Baskeyfield, who was in charge of one of the South Staffords' 6-pounder anti-tank guns. The citation for his Victoria Cross tells how he allowed the tanks to come within 100 yards, range before opening fire, and his gun was credited with the destruction of two tanks and at least one self-propelled gun. The other members of Baskeyfield's gun team were all killed or wounded during this engagement; Baskeyfield himself, although wounded in the leg, refused to be evacuated. He crawled across the road to another 6-pounder and, manning it quite alone, was killed that afternoon.
Lance-Sergeant John Baskeyfield as no known grave
Another action against German armour here is described by Captain Frank King of the 11th Battalion, whose parachute aricraft had been shot down on Monday and who had just crught up with the remnants of his unit. Major Lonsdale sent him with two soldiers to attack a self-propelled gun that was firing from among some houses to the north of the British positions:
We worked our way along the street to the last house, where we could see there were Germans upstairs and one in the cellar looking out of the ground level window. I sent my men upstairs to deal with the Germans there and I went into the cellar myself. I stuck out my revolver and shouted. 'Hands up!' in German. He astonished me. He was rather fat and was carrying his rifle at the trail; he didn't look particularly dangerous. But he was a good soldier and was fooling me. He just lifted the rifle up and fired it one handed, hitting me in the chest, the bullet going in one side and coming out on the other. The recoil tore the rifle out of his grip, and I saw that it ripped his hand. I did what I had been trained to do, aiming at 'the centre of the visible mass' which was quite extensive and killed him. Meanwhile my two soldiers had gone upstairs and had shot the Germans there but they were excited because they could look down on top of the SP gun. I was still quite mobile. There was a young German officer with his head out of the hatch. We dropped a Gammon bomb on to it, killing the officer and causing the SP to withdraw rapidly. We left the rear of the house and somehow found ourselves in a chicken run. A German threw a stick grenade into it, badly wounding one of the soldiers, and I got some splinters in my leg. I report back to Lonsdale, and he told me to get my wounds dressed.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
Not all of the defenders were able to stand the pressure of the German attacks. Sergeant Bob Leeder, a glider pilot near the church, this is his description:
I saw a woman with a pram running down the road towards me. Following her were ten or fifteen more civilians and, behind them a batch of thirty or forty South Staffs. Most of them didn't have rifles, but I saw two, who did have them, throw them down on the roadside as they run. A jeep burst through this group and, when it was clear, stopped, and an officer got out and started firing his revolver into the air. Everyone stopped, except the woman with the pram. The officer spoke to the South Staffs. I couldn't hear what he said, but it must have been something like, 'Get back you silly sods', because they turned about, and he got an NCO to form them up and march them back. I ask the jeep driver what was happening. He said, 'Flame-throwers up there, and it started a panic.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
The German attacks on the forward position were resumed in the afternoon. Casualties continued to mount. Private Doug Charlton of the 1st Battalion had only worked his way back from Arnhem that morning, having slipped away from his captors when their attention was distracted by an RAF supply drop. He was now in one of the houses and tells his story of mixed horror and macabre humour:
From the upstairs window we saw two tanks with a platoon of infantry behind. We took up firing positions at the windows, with me at the Piat and the glider pilot with the Piat bombs. They were twenty yards away when I fired, but the bomb literally fall off the end and exploded on the ground below. Sergeant Callagham opened up with a Bren on the foot soldiers, and also with his rifle. Two tank commanders disappeared into the turrets and the guns swung round our way. I made for the stairs, closely followed by Callagham. We had just made the stairs when there was a massive explosion in the room, followed by screams. Going back, we found the glider pilot dead with the flash eliminator and foresight of the Bren embedded in his head the wounded soldier was minus his right leg but still conscious. The Germans reversed back down the road and Callagham told me to try and find a medic. I ran about half a mile and came to a house with a Red Cross jeeps parked outside and dead bodies stacked in the garden. After arguing, I got a Welsh corporal with a medic haversack and took him to the wounded soldier the corporal grumbling all the way there. Callagham was gone the wounded soldier was out like a light, twitching. I suggested some morphine. The medic and I argued. I said, 'For Christ's sake, do something; he's lost his leg,' His reply was, 'No he bloody well hasn't; look, there it is', pointing to the corner of the room. And there it was, complete with trouser, boot and gaiter. I was flabbergasted, although I can laugh now.
Martin Middlebrook Arnhem 1944
It is believed that the wounded man died later.
That mixed force commanded by Lonsdale was so weakened by the repeated attacks the Brigadier Hicks, who was in overall control of the area at the time, gave Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson permission to withdraw it and relocate it closer to the church. Many of the men were in sorry condition. An artillery officer describes one group, who had crawl along a ditch to reach the safety of the church, 'ripping the stuffing out of pew cushions to make some sort of dry vests, by cutting the corners out for armholes'. The Germans did not follow up on the withdrawal and it was the first chance for many of these men to relax since they had dropped by parachute three days earlier. It was now early evening. Major Lonsdale gave orders that the men who fallen back were to gather in the church and that is where he made his famous address from the pulpit, his head bandaged and one arm in a sling from minor injuries.
He complimented the men on their recent actions and told them to rest for a short while, get a meal from what food they had left, clean themselves up and be prepared to take up new positions around the houses near the church. He said the German troops opposing them were good but not up to the standard of the men in the church. He wished all present good luck. Some men were asleep but it is generally agreed that the talk was a major boost to morale. An unexpected officer reinforcement arrived during Lonsdale's address in the form of Major Alan Bush of 3rd Battalion; he had been given up for lost in the Arnhem fighting. He was most impressed to see the 'filthy, tired men cleaning their rifles- well trained men those were'.
'Lonsdale Force' was now recognized by Divisional HQ, with Lonsdale in command of all parachute battalion units and Thompson Force containing artillery, the South Staffs and local Glider Pilots. This arrangement would not last long, because Thompson was wounded on the following day, and Lonsdale assumed command of all infantry in this sector. And so these men sattled down to defend the sector of the perimeter which they would hold to the end. The front line was under the command of three majors: Alan Bush with remnants of the 1st Parachute Brigade in the south, Robert Cain with the South Staffs in the centre and Bob Croot with the Glider Pilots, mostly from G Squadron, in the north of the sector. The 11th Battalion men, Lonsdale's own battalion, were withdrawn into the perimeter as his reserve. After the war, he liked to give the impression that his headquarters were in the romantic little church which was almost in the front line but actually set up his command post in a house 300 yards north-east of the church and mostly passed orders to the front line by means of a field telephone maintained by 3rd Battalion.
While the Germans so hard to drive in the defence on the lower road, presumably to try and cut off the 1st Airborne Division from the river while it was off balance, much of the remaining eastern side of the perimeter had been wide open. The Germans had moved only cautiously along the Utrechtseweg perhaps fearing the 17-pounder anti-tank guns suspected of being in the Hertenstein area. They advanced only as far as the crossroads where a Main Dressing Station had been set up two hotels there. After putting a shell through the Hotel Schoonoord and firing through windows at medics seen moving inside, but receiving no return fire from these non-combatants, German infantry moved in and took over the buildings. Most of the medical staff and the many walking wounded were taken prisoner and moved away, leaving forty seriously wounded cases and a small medical staff. The Germans then departed. More British troops became available during Wednesday as the depleted units of the 4th Parachute Brigade came into the perimeter from their battle in the woods. Lieutenant- Colonel Ken Smyth and about seventy men of the 10th Battalion arrived first and were sent straight to that crossroads to capture houses east of the hotel - hospitals as an outer defence. Thirty-Five Glider Pilots from D Squadron then extended the main perimeter northwards up the Stationsweg and would defend that sector under the command of the kilted Captain James Ogilvie. There were still gaps to the north and south of those positions. The 600-yard sector between the 10th Battalion and the Glider Pilots at the north end of Lonsdale Force line would remain open until the following day, but Germans never exploited it. To the north, further up the Stationsweg, there was a smaller gap before a group of houses occupied by dismounted troopers of the Reconnaissance Squadron. This unit had experienced a disastrous patrol the previous day, out in the country north of Wolfheze on the Amsterdamseweg, when seven jeeps containing thirty men of C Troop had run into a strong German force and been badly shot up. Only two jeeps and seven men escaped by racing through the German positions; the remainder of the patrol had been killed or taken prisoner. Most of the other parts of the squadron now became foot soldiers, but not in sufficient numbers to provide a full defence along the Stationsweg. So when the survivors of 156 Battalion came into the perimeter late on Wednesday, they were sent to that area and eventually settled down with the Reconnaissance Squadron on their left. Major Geoffrey Powell, commanding the sixty men who were all that remained of 156 Battalion, also took command of the Reconnaissance Squadron, which had no officer present above the rank of captain. The time was 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday 20 September, just three days since the 1st Airborne Division had landed with such high hopes. The Oosterbeek perimeter was almost complete.
