Letter from Dunkirk soldier arrives 80 years later

The family of a soldier who died on the retreat to Dunkirk during World War Two have finally received his last letter 80 years after he wrote it.

Pte Harry Cole, of the Suffolk Regiment, wrote the letter to his mother just before he was killed but it was never sent.

It was found with a collection of other post by a German soldier who handed them to the British embassy in 1968.

An assistant archivist from Suffolk County Council found his surviving brothers after realising she lived in the same village – Hasketon, near Woodbridge in Suffolk.

Clemmie Cole, 87, said: “It’s unbelievable that such a thing could happen.”