Cpl James Edgar, the last surviving commando from Operation Basalt.
On 21 May 2016, the book launch for Operation Basalt: The British Raid on Sark and Hitler’s Commando Order had a surprise guest: the last surviving member of the team of British commandos who participated in the raid.
Cpl. James Edgar, who turned 96 on the same day, sent us this extraordinary video greeting:
Dear Mr Lees, I have read your book Operation Basalt with much interest. My father in law was one of the commandos at Operation Basalt. He’s name was James William Flint known as Jim or Jimmy, he was born in 1916 and passed away 2000. He was a close buddie of Horace Stokes (Stokesy as he called him). Jim emigrated to Australia in 1959 with his wife and 2 sons John and Ken. They remember a story from that operation, crossing what the group thought was a narrow, shallow water course Stokesy went first doing what they had been trained to do which was one step into the water and the step out. Unfortunately the water was deeper than anticipated and Stokesy sunk down quite some way. Dad only ever told us about the funnier side of his war experience’s. He was a commando/paratrooper and rose to the rank of Sargeant. He was involved in raids where they were parachuted in behind enemy lines, he talked about going into Yugoslavia. This occurred after the Tehran Conference of 1943. There is still a lot more to be learned of our Dad’s time in the Military. If you would like to contact me further please feel free to do so. I could supply you with a photograph of Jim in his commando uniform.
Hello Carol. I haven’t looked at this site for a while so missed your comment. I would be very grateful if we could exchange information. Regards, Graham robinson
Hello Carol. My grandfather was Leslie Wright. He is in several books about being part of this raid. These reports have since been ‘discredited’ and it is now said that he made it all up. I’d like to learn the truth. I have memoirs written by my grandfather, in which he mentions your father-in-law, he referred to him as ‘Skinner’ as everyone had a nickname and I guess this was based on the surname. It would be great if we could talk.