My mission to find grave and honour a hero

ANTONY’S grave was lost for almost 70 years until Steve discovered dad Fred’s letters and set out to find it.

After hearing Antony died during the Forced March of 1945, he scoured the National Archives and came across an account of the march by Staff Sergeant Thomas Aitken. It said Antony had died at Kaltenhof, Lower Saxony.

Steve tracked down Antony’s niece, Barbara Willoughby-Thomas, who flew over from Australia to meet him in Germany. And after making an appeal for witnesses in the local paper, they found the barn where Antony died.

Steve then had to convince the MoD. He says: “I was so lucky I had found the man who had found the body, we’d had the documentation and I put together a paper trail that was convincing.”

In July 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the marches, Steve heard Antony’s unmarked grave would be rededicated. “It felt like I had finally done something which needed to be done,” he said.

Steve has since found the grave of Private GH Thompson, who died on the same march, and is planning to track down the remaining men. TRIBUTE AT LAST Antony’s headstone