A FALLEN Fusilier will finally be buried with full military honours next week, almost 87 years after he was gunned down during an attack on German trenches.

The ceremony for Private Harry Wilkinson will take place in a Belgian military cemetery on Wednesday, with three generations of his family there to witness it.

Private Wilkinson died along with two comrades on November 19, 1914. He was buried in a shell-scrape hours after his death in the Ypres Salient.

However, it was only in January last year that First World War historians uncovered the soldier's remains together with an identity disc and other artefacts.

The Bury Times was instrumental in helping trace Private Wilkinson's family who will join the 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, for the funeral at the Prowse Point Military Cemetery. The Regiment's Colonel in Chief, the Duke of Kent, will attend the service.

Pte. Wilkinson, a 29-year-old cotton worker went to the front line just two months before his death, leaving behind his pregnant wife, Eva, and son Harry (6) at their Lord Street home in Bury. He was buried in a shallow, shell-scrape at Ploegsteert Wood in Flanders.

The discovery of his remains 85 years later sparked a nationwide search for his descendents, led by Bury's Lancashire Fusilier Museum, the Bury Times and radio journalist Jonathan Ali.

Grand-daughter Mrs June Brammer said: "The family is very proud. It will be emotional for all of us seeing him laid to rest after such a long time."

Following the funeral, Pte. Wilkinson's name will be the first to be read out during a ceremony to mark the 25,000th sounding of the Last Post, which is played every evening to honour British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient.