WWI hero's dying wish carried out ‘by his German killer’

London: A German soldier, who was probably his killer, fulfilled First World War hero’s dying wish of a photo to be delivered to his family. As he lay wounded on the Western Front, Private Percy Buck was clutching a photo of his wife Bertha, baby son Cyril and family, Daily Express reported.

The night before the battle, the 26-year-old, who was in the Hertfordshire Regiment, had put his address on the back and had asked the finder to forward it to his loved ones if he was killed.

The picture was recovered from his body by Gefreiter Josef Wilczek, a Lance Corporal in the German army, who sent it to the Red Cross in Geneva with a letter saying that he found it in the hands of a ‘dying comrade.’

The letter and image were then forwarded to Mrs Buck in Hertfordshire.It was Private Buck’s granddaughter, Christina Reynolds, who found the letter in a cardboard box in a cupboard at her home in Hitchin, and uncovered the story of remarkable act of kindness.

She handed the documents to archivists at Herts at War, a community project marking the 100th anniversary of the conflict.The project pieced together the whole story and discovered that, in a sad twist, Cpl Wilczek was killed on October 31, 1918 – two weeks before the Armistice.