Secret mission of SAS hero revealed

Elite soldier's medals for sale, 80 years after he and brave comrades executed by Nazis

- ALFIE MULLIGAN

MEDALS of an SAS soldier who was executed by the Nazis after being captured during a secret wartime mission are going up for auction.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Corporal Kenneth Bateman’s death.

The Salford-born soldier was part of B Squadron of the Special Air Services, elite soldiers working with French Resistance fighters to disrupt the movement of German troops in June 1944.

Cpl Bateman, 24, parachuted into occupied France hours before D-Day as part of Operation Bulbasket, which was swathed in secrecy for years after the war.

He and his comrade, Sergeant Eccles, were on a sabotage operation to blow up points in the marshalling yard at Saint Benoit, in south-west France, to prevent Nazi troop trains taking reinforcements to the Normandy beachhead.

But they were captured by German soldiers on June 28, 1944.