It was stretcher-bearer Ernie Seaman who first found the body of Sidney Bates, lying unconscious in a field, riddled with bullets and with terrible wounds in his leg and his throat.

In front of him was a scene of carnage: with the bodies of men from the German soldiers from the SS Panzer Division, cut down by Bates in a final, deadly showdown, which had turned back an enemy advance and saved the lives of his comrades.

The action came on August 6 1944 – two months on from the Landings – as the men of the Royal Norfolks were still entangled in the orchards, hedgerows and cornfields of Normandy.

They had been on the march near Sourdeval when they had come under heavy fire from the 10th SS Panzer Division. The attack began with heavy and accurate artillery and mortar fire concentrated on the two forward companies, one of which Bates was commanding.

Hit with casualties, Bates, the son of a rag and bone man from Camberwell, London, decided to move the remnants of his section to a new position where he hoped they would be able to gain a vantage point, but the Norfolks were outnumbered by around 50 to 60 Germans, placing them in danger.

Bates was beside his friend, bren gunner 'Tojo' Tomlin, when Tojo was caught by a bullet and crumpled to the floor. Cradling his friend in his arms, Bates held Tojo until he died and then, maybe consumed with fury that his friend was dead, maybe realising the Normandy Campaign relied on preventing the Germans from occupying a vital, nearby hill-top position, he grabbed Tojo's gun and charged the enemy. Ploughing through a hail of bullets and splinters, Bates ran towards the enemy, spraying them with machine gun fire. Almost immediately, he was hit. Almost immediately, he picked himself up off the floor and continued advancing towards the German line, peppering it with bullets amid the mortar bombs that fell around him.

Again he was hit. Again he got up. The Germans, meanwhile, were beginning to withdraw, the actions of one lone soldier causing them to abandon their stronghold and retreat, preventing them from taking the hill which controlled the main east-west road across Normandy, the road that they had to control if they were to halt the Allied advance.

Basher was hit one last time – this time, he didn't have the strength to get back up, but he did have the strength to curl himself round his machine gun and continue firing from the long grass. His gun fell silent only when the enemy had withdrawn.

Many of Bates's comrades said later that his astonishing charge had been the turning point in the battle of Sourdeval and one of the most important the Royal Norfolks had ever fought.

It was during a lull in the fighting that Ernie Seaman answered the call to collect Basher from the field where he lay wounded.

'He couldn't talk. All I could do was to try to stop the bleeding, bandage his wounds and get him back,' remembered Seaman. Bates died on August 8, 1944.

Years earlier, as he left the family home to serve with the Norfolks, Bates had told his mother, Gladys, 'Don't think I'm brave – I'm scared.'

But in November 1944, the London Gazette announced the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross to Cpl Sidney Bates, 23, for his gallantry and self-sacrifice. A medal collected from King George VI by Fred, the rag and bone man, for the brave boy who told his mother he was scared, but proved on the battlefield that he was anything but.