SOLDIERS from W Company of Tidworth based First Fusiliers travelled to Ypres to provide a burial party for the re-internment of Captain Henry John Innes Walker and an unknown soldier of 1st Battalion, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment, a forebear of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

Both men fell on April 25, 1915 during a British counter attack on Oblong Farm and Kitchener’s Wood. They were among 12 Officers and 208 Other Ranks from the battalion who were killed that morning.

The remains were found in 2016 by archaeologists. Captain Walker was identified by personal artefacts including a coin holder inscribed with his initials ‘HJIW.’

The remains of both men, along with those of five unknown British soldiers, were buried with full military honours at New Irish Farm Cemetery in the presence of his family and the regiment in a ceremony presided over by the Reverend Stuart Richards CF, chaplain to the First Fusiliers.

Captain Walker was 25 when he was shot in the stomach and killed as his company tried to capture a wooded area. His remains were found with a leather casing bearing the initials “HJIW”, plus a Regiment cap badge and shoulder title, which together were enough to identify him.

Family members who attended the ceremony included his great-nephews, who travelled from New Zealand and Australia.

Soldiers from Bulford based 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment travelled to Plymouth where Captain John James Crowe VC of the Worcestershire Regiment, was honoured with a commemorative ‘paviour’ at a ceremony attended by his great granddaughter and soldiers from the battalion.

Captain Crowe was a remarkable hero, having risen through the ranks, he was commissioned in the field as 2nd Lieutenant on April 1, 1918 and two weeks later he was awarded the Victoria Cross.