In Memory Of

BASFORD, HENRY FREDERICK

Service Details
Age:
 45
Date of Birth:
 -0001-11-30
Service No:
 998
Rank:
 Sergeant Major
Unit:
 1st Regt.
Regiment:
 South African Infantry
Date of Death:
 1917-04-12
Cause of Death:
 Killed in action, in the improvised and disastrous attack of the 9th (Scottish) Division on the German positions in the East of Fampoux. The 1st SAI lost 2 officers and 203 men.
Commemoration
Grave Reference:
 II. B. 4.
Cemetery:
 BROWN'S COPSE CEMETERY, ROEUX
Localitly:
 Pas de Calais
Country:
 France
Additional Information
Son of the late John Basford; husband of Edith Mary Basford, of 19 Cuyler Crescent, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Served in the South African and German South West African Campaigns. Born Leicester, England. Basford was an enthusiastic volunteer and joined the local Regiment, Prince Alfred's Guards in which he held the rank of Company Sergeant Major. He proved to be a smart and popular non-commissioned officer, and fought with the Regiment during the Boer and during the German South West African campaign. Basford was instinctively a soldier to whom family ties, though dear, promptly were superseded when there was a call to arms. Thus, the Great War found him amongst the ardent spirits in the South African Infantry, and though a middle-aged man, he lacked nothing of the energy and efficiency of his younger days. Basford had already survived many hot encounters unscathed, but, as with not a few men in the Great War, held a premonition of impending death.