SIX unknown British soldiers, whose bodies were recently discovered in a farmer’s field in Belgium, have been given a dignified send-off more than a century after they fell.

Drum Major Paul Ingleton, 37, based in Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, was called on to help give the First World War military personnel a poignant reburial this week and sound the Last Post at Menin Gate in their honour.

The soldiers were all found in a field in 2008 and 2010. It is thought they had been killed in action in October 1914 and given a field burial near the city of Ypres. The area was a key battleground at the start of the war and continued to be so throughout the four year conflict.

But it was not possible to identify the men and yesterday (Thursday, April 16), they were re-interred in graves marked Known Unto God – a description on the headstones of all unknown soldiers.

They were buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Prowse Point Military Cemetery in Belgium with full military honours.

Little is known about the soldiers and no relatives have been found, but it was possible to identify the men’s regiments from their uniforms. Two served with the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment and two with The Lancashire Fusiliers.

As a result, Drum Major Ingleton, a member of the 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, based at Somme Barracks in Catterick Garrison was invited to perform at the Menin Gate memorial on Wednesday (April 15), prior to attending their reburial in Ypres, Belgium, the following day.

The Last Post ceremony is performed under the Menin Gate every day at 8pm, but usually only by Last Post Association buglers.

Drum Major Ingleton, from Carlisle, said: “It is a great honour. I have been asked to play at several repatriations of fallen soldiers, but I have never done anything like this at the Menin Gate before.”

During the Last Post ceremony on Wednesday, Drum Major Ingleton, who is married with four children, took time to remember his own grandfather who was a gunner in the Second World War.

The bodies of about 60 soldiers are still found each year across Europe and there are believed to be about 187,000 graves from the First World War which carry the Known Unto God inscription, which was chosen by Rudyard Kipling.