A DARWEN soldier who was killed in one of the key battles of the First World War will finally be laid to rest this week.

Corporal Percy Howarth will be one of three soldiers serving with Canadian forces to be buried with full military honours at the Loos British cemetery in France on Thursday.

His body was discovered 12 years ago during a munitions clearing process for a construction site in Vendin-le-Vieil, about three miles north of Lens in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. It was close to Hill 70 which was in the thick of the battle for Vimy Ridge in the late summer of 1917.

There was a digging tool, and a watch and a whistle in a pocket. But Corporal Howarth wasn’t formally identified until earlier this year.

Canadian military contacted Darwen Heritage Centre to try and track down any of his relatives.

Percy Howarth was working as a baker and living in Earnsdale Road in Darwen before the war but had decided to try and start a new life for himself in Canada and went off to be a seaman based in Vancouver.

With the outbreak of the Great War, he returned home and signed up.

He joined the 121st ‘Overseas’ Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, and was soon training with them in England. He was promoted to Corporal and was fighting with the 7th Canadian Expeditionary force in Flanders.

He reported missing on August 15, 1917, on the first day of the Battle of Hill 70 near Lens, France, and was presumed to have died as part of the battle. He was 23.

He was one of more than 10,000 from several Canadian divisions who were killed, wounded or missing. Many suffered from the new mustard gas which was unleashed by the Germans.

Representatives of the Government of Canada and the local French Government will be at his burial at the cemetery run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.