Sherfield-on-Loddon resident Natalie Larner gave an outline to the Probus Club of Basingstoke of Captain John Aidan Liddell VC MC whose 1915 burial in South View cemetery, Basingstoke was attended by many dignitaries and public crowds.
Although he was born near Newcastle in 1888, during the early 1900s and after the First World War, the Liddell family lived at Sherfield Manor which today is Sherfield School. As a lasting connection one of the buildings at Sherfield Village Hall bears the family name and on 11 November each year a special service is held to commemorate his memory.
Following Balliol College, Oxford, where he had obtained a first-class degree in Zoology, at the age of 24 and not wanting to be a ’slacker’ John Aidan Liddell joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders following his maternal grandfather into a Scottish regiment.
When the first World War started, with the rank of Lieutenant, he commanded a Maxim machine gun section on the Western Front that remained unsupported for 43 days. For this action and for saving the Company Sergeant Major he received the MC.
This long time at the front, spent either in action or the suboptimal conditions of front-line trenches, where he changed his socks only once in that time, took a toll on his health and he was given leave.
Before the outbreak of the war, he had trained as a pilot, flying a Boxkite at the Vickers school at Brooklands and following recuperation from his battlefield experiences he joined the Royal Flying Corps being promoted to Captain and was stationed at Saint-Omer in northern France.
On 31 July 1915 he, together with an observer/gunner, was flying a two-seater RE 5 biplane at 5,000 feet near Bruges when they were fired on by enemy aircraft. Badly wounded with a shattered right thigh he lost consciousness and the plane nose-dived. Regaining consciousness, he was able to regain control at only 3,000 feet above enemy lines.
The plane was badly damaged and with the crew member, 2nd Lieutenant Roland Peck, also wounded, he managed to fly back to base saving not only the plane but also the life of his observer. Captain Liddell had his right leg amputated but died due to septicaemia a month later. He was 27 years old.
There had been much publicity in the British newspapers of this event so that when his body was brought back to England and following a Catholic mass held in London, the coffin travelled to Basingstoke by train where it was met with pipers from his regiment. The cortege passed through the town where crowds lined the streets and flags flown at half half-mast. His observer was amongst many who attended the funeral.
The posthumous VC was presented to his father by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 17 November 1915. Only four such medals were awarded to members of the Royal Flying Corps.
Several commemorative plaques of Captain John Aidan Liddell VC MC are found around Britain, but Sherfield-on-Loddon has its own memorials. His name can be seen topping the list of other local men who lost their lives during this conflict on the village war memorial. And in 2015, the century after his death, a commemorative engraved paving stone, atop a brick plinth, was positioned near the crossroad in the village. Sherfield-on-Loddon residents are justly proud of their local man who became a war hero.
Probus Club of Basingstoke 
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