Wing Commander C. A. “Toby” Baskett, DFC, wartime bomber pilot, was born on September 19, 1911. He died on June 24, 2007, aged 95

As the pilot of a Handley Page Hampden of 61 Squadron, “Toby” Baskett took part in Bomber Command’s first raid against a town in mainland Germany, in May 1940.

Before this raid Bomber Command’s attacks on the enemy’s assets had been restricted to sorties against shipping and strikes against the sea-plane base on the North Friesian island of Sylt. On May 11, 1940, he took off from RAF Hemswell in Lincolnshire as one of a force of 36 bombers that attacked road junctions in the town of Mönchengladbach, the aim being to slow down the Wehrmacht’s advance into the Low Countries which had begun the day before.

Previous sorties flown by Baskett had involved minelaying and, in April, an attack on enemy shipping off the coast of Norway, then under German attack. In September 1940 he won the DFC for a series of low-level attacks on the Dortmund-Ems canal, a target that proved a thorn in the side to Bomber Command throughout the war. In the first 15 months of the war he completed two tours of operations.

After this he was sent to train air-crew in Canada, where he met his wife. From late 1944 he commanded a Transport Command base at Nassau in the Bahamas, eventually retiring to Toronto after leaving the RAF in 1957.