The funeral took place in a battlefield cemetery.
Jay Wilkinson wears his great-great grandfather's medals.
Posted on 10/31/2001 4:31:43 PM PST by dighton
FOR more than 85 years the body of Harry Wilkinson lay forgotten in the mud of Flanders, seemingly lost forever on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the First World War.
The Lancashire Fusilier was killed during the first Battle of Ypres in November 1914, leaving a six-year-old son and a wife, Eva, who was pregnant with his daughter.
Buried where he fell, his grave unknown and unmarked, Pte Wilkinson's body remained undiscovered for generations until last year when a farmer chose to plough a field for the first time since 1914.
Unearthed beside his skeleton were fragments of uniform, his identity tag, a pipe and a bottle of rum. His arm appeared thrown over his head as if to protect himself from a shell blast.
Pte Wilkinson's family were unaware that their posthumously decorated grandfather still lay on the Ypres Salient, along with tens of thousands of young men whose remains were never found. His was the first body to be found and identified in Belgium for 20 years.
Yesterday, with four generations of his family looking on, his funeral was held, with full military honours, in a battlefield cemetery only a few hundred yards from where he fell.
"It is very emotional for us, to see him properly buried after all this time," said June Brammer, Pte Wilkinson's grand-daughter, whose mother was the daughter he never saw. "We had no idea he was still lying on the battlefield.
"We will never know for definite how Harry was killed, but we know he had a wound to his head. We believe his comrades knew he wasn't going to make it, so they covered him with his overcoat and left him with some rum."
Pte Wilkinson, who had been a fire-beater at Bury cotton mill, landed in France two months before his death on the Western Front. After fighting at the Marne and Aisne, he was sent to the front line near Ploegsteert Wood on the Ypres Salient. The following day, he sent a postcard to his wife with the wish: "May God be with you until we meet again."
Pte Wilkinson was among men from 2 Battalion ordered to support the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in a night counter-attack. They bayonetted their way through German trenches and seized a farmhouse but four of the Lancashires, including Pte Wilkinson, were killed.
Pte Wilkinson's widow, who never remarried, was told in a letter of condolence sent with a death plaque from the King that he had been awarded three medals posthumously: the Mons Star, the War Medal and the Victory Medal.
Mrs Brammer, who was three when Eva died, said: "I vaguely remember her. She must have had a very hard time. Fortunately she had a big family who helped her, although I think three of her brothers did not come back from the war."
Yesterday, Pte Wilkinson's medals were worn by his great-great grandson, Jay Wilkinson, nine, who watched as the remains of his distant relative were lowered into a grave at Prowse Point Military Cemetery, just south of Ypres.
Asked what he knew of Pte Wilkinson, he said: "I just know he was a hero of the First World War."
Mrs Brammer, 59, and Annette Wilkinson, 51, Pte Wilkinson's great grand-daughter, were visibly moved during the service, which was attended by the Duke of Kent and soldiers from 1 Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
The regiment was formed from four others in 1968, including the Lancashire Fusiliers.
After the salute by the firing party, Last Post was sounded, before the Colonel of the Regiment read the exhortation: "At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."
The Reverend Ray Jones, chaplain of St George's Memorial Church, told those gathered: "We should rejoice in the opportunity to pay tribute to a soldier who has lain forgotten for so long and who is now, in a sense, reunited with his family and his regiment."
Later, a ceremony attended by the Duke of Edinburgh marked the 25,000th sounding of Last Post at the Menin Gate, which commemorates the 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient and whose whereabouts remain unknown.
It has been sounded every day since July 1928. As part of the anniversary, a different soldier, sailor or airman killed in the Great War is to be honoured each day for a year. Pte Wilkinson is the first.
Before Mrs Brammer left the cemetery she laid a wreath at her grandfather's grave. It read: "Harry, lost but now found. May you now rest in peace."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
The funeral took place in a battlefield cemetery.
Jay Wilkinson wears his great-great grandfather's medals.
God bless.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
-John McCrae, 1915
Granted, most people had their kids much younger, and therefore we have a couple of extra generations in there, but my dad had me at 34, so this isn't out of the question.
When they went out to police up the bodies, they discovered he was somehow still alive. Lived until 1979 and his pension from the Canadian Army was all the way up to $12 per month.
Anyone who has read of their extraordinary exploits will agree: What a Hero you had for a father, and I am sure you are cut out of the same cloth.
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