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from The Guardian, Thursday 16th April, 1998

Army and proud families honour trench war victims finally laid to rest

John Ezard on a Last Post sounded at Arras yesterday

In a reaffirmed family spirit of sorrow and pride, two British first world war soldiers whose remains were discovered 81 years late received Christian burial close to where they fell yesterday.

Frank King aged 23, and George Anderson, 30, were given named graves in the quiet fields of northern France for the first time since they died in battle of Arras on April 11, 1917.

Their funerals were held in a small village cemetery at Monchy-le-Preux, which holds the bodies of 450 other dead among the total of 150,000 British casualties in the eight-day battle.

At their gravesides as the Last Post sounded stood 16 of their descendants who were traced despite the gulf of time and memory. Frank King's niece, Margaret Middleton, aged 62, of Chesterton, Cambridge, said afterwards: "It was very moving. I can't imagine what it was like to have fought here on this land.

"I feel very sad but very proud."

Private King (picture: right) was one of three brothers lost in the war.

Also there to honour them was an Arras veteran, Harry Wells, aged 98; the Duke of Kent, a colonel in chief of their regiment, the Royal Fusiliers, and the armed forces minister, John Reid. Dr Reid said: "I am here today because we promised never to forget".

Interred with them after a full military funeral was a third soldier, identified only as a Royal Fusilier. The three were among 27 victims found in a mass grave by archaeologists looking for Celtic remains on a site to be used for a motorway.

Privates King and Anderson, both from west London, were identified because they were among the first Western Front soldiers to be issued with metal name tags. It is thought they were injured in battle and died at a front-line field hospital, where they were buried in a makeshift grave later overrun in the tides of war.

Harry Wells said: "I feel very lucky being able to be here today. I was in hospital for two years with the effects of mustard gas. In 1920 they said that, if I gave up wine, women and son, I might live for another ten years".

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