Retired teacher George Rodgers, 71, spent more than a decade searching for where his brother Tom lay after he was killed in action in France in 1940 aged just 21.

His search took him to a small village in France and a chance meeting led him to the spot where Tom and five other soldiers from West Hartlepool were buried.

George, who was only three when Tom was killed had promised his father he would find him when he died in 1959, said: "We wanted to find his grave, and honour him appropriately.

"I told my father I would find him all those years ago, and I did."

He added: "My father James had fought in the First World War, and Tom followed in his footsteps by signing up for the Army.

"My other brother, Jim, worked with Tom down the pit at Wingate Colliery, and when the war started Tom signed up for the Army and Jim went in the Navy.

"They went their separate ways, and never saw each other again."
George added: "Tom was stationed in a place called Gastouche in France, on the River Dyle, and was in the second battalion of the Durham Light Infantry.

"He was home on leave in February 1940, and that was the last time he was home. He died on May 27, 1940, and he was just 21.

"As I got older, I heard all of the stories about Tom and what sort of a person he was.

"My father died in 1959, and before he died I promised him I would find out where our Tom was killed.

"We wanted to find his grave, and honour him appropriately.

"During my research, I discovered there were five other West Hartlepool lads who had been killed in the battle in 1940 and who had no memorial to their sacrifice.

"They marched through the night from their base, and they were heavily bombed and machine gunned."

Upon retirement, George made it his mission to keep his promise to his father.

After researching dozens of books, his quest eventually took him to the continent to follow in his brother's footsteps.
George went on: "I went over to France in 2000 after doing a lot of research.

"I went to the village of St Venant where there was an exhibition in the Town Hall to mark the 60th anniversary of one of the battles.

"I got chatting to a local historian, and explained what I was trying to do.

"We had an interesting conversation, and after I described my brother to him it turned out he knew who I was talking about.

"In 1942 the Germans made the French exhume all of the bodies from the fields where they lay. It was actually a farmhouse, and while I was in France I got talking to a lady who lived at the farm and remembered when she was a young girl going to put flowers on the grave.

"She remembered the Germans used to march past, and make her take the flowers off.

"Once the bodies were exhumed, the bodies of the men were taken to a church and examined by a French pathologist, in a kind of post-mortem examination situation. The bodies were then given a number, and buried again in a communal cemetery where the graves are marked with headstones.

"A lot of the bodies couldn't be distinguished, but by Tom's height and hair colour, and a gap between his front two teeth, he was identified

"It was nice to be able to visit the spot where he was, and it brought some closure to it. It does nag away at you, it's always in the back of your mind.

"All those years of family get-togethers, we used to often say we wondered where our Tom was. I told my father I would find him all those years ago, and I did."

In recognition of the bravery of Tom and his comrades, a memorial is to be placed in Hartlepool's Stranton Cemetery to allow surviving family members to pay their respects.