A World War Two hero from Whitton whose grave has only just been discovered in Germany has finally been mourned by relatives – in time for what would have been his 99th birthday.

Sergeant Julian Waring-Reid survived Dunkirk, North Africa, and was amongst the first on shore during the D-Day landings after which he helped liberate Holland and Denmark, and capture Germany.

But he was tragically killed after the war by a freight train on a level crossing while still in Germany. It was just days before he was due to return home to his family. He was 27 years old.

His nephew James Rand described seeing the grave for the first time: “It was so emotional, I was welling up. It was all the emotions of my mother and my aunts and my grandparents, all their emotions. I just had to mourn him.”

He also took with him his Uncle Julian’s lucky clock, which he’d hand-painted and saw him through every battle but had been left behind at barracks on that fateful final day.

“I sat on his grave and talked to him and his clock started ticking again after all these years.

“I talked to him about the family history and our news, cheerful stuff like weddings. It was a lovely day – the sun came out and it was perfect.”

Tragically Julian’s parents and sisters died having never visited his grave.

Mr Rand added: “My mother and three sisters were always saying they must go but the family home got sold in 1973 and because times were hard the money got spent on other things and they always felt guilty about it.”

According to Mr Rand, the guilt passed over to the next generation, including himself, his brother and his cousins, who would always talk about visiting Julian’s grave whenever they had weddings and family get-togethers.

However, tracking down the grave was difficult due to his grandparents not having the right details for Julian, even on his memorial stone in Twickenham Cemetery.

He said: “I went down to the public records office in Kew to get more information, it was only then I realised they had the regiment wrong on the grave stone.”

However, Mr Rand did not give up.

One of his manager’s friends, Mark Demody, ran a website called Find A War Grave and it was through here that he began to get hope.

It turned out that Julian was buried in Munster Heath War Cemetery in southern Germany and so Mr Rand could finally make the journey in time for Julian’s birthday on September 20, taking soil from his grandparents’ and aunts’ graves and mingling it with Julian’s.

Mr Rand made the journey to visit the grave on September 19. He plans to visit again next year for what would be Julian’s 100th birthday and to go to Sennelager where he died. To honour his memory he’s also taken James Waring-Reid as his alias for his work as an artist.