A VISIT to a battle area and burial ground in northern France has failed to solve the mystery of how and when Private Wilfred Lee died during the First World War.

His great nephew, Keith Calder, found his grave this month after he travelled to the Somme region from his home in Whorlton, near Barnard Castle, County Durham.

But after making widespread inquiries and studying records, he said: "I am still in the dark about what happened and it seems unlikely now that I will ever be able to unravel the truth."

A note in a family Bible says Pte Lee died in France in October 1916, when he was 28.

But his gravestone in Le Quesnoy war cemetery, in the Avenois region of northern France, gives his date of death as October 2, 1918.

Mr Calder, a retired dentist and former colonel in the Territorial Army, said: "The stone and military records state simply that he died on that date, whereas other men are said to have been killed in action or died from wounds.

"One theory is that he was taken prisoner and died of malnutrition or an illness in a German camp in 1916, and was then one of a number of men reburied at Le Quesnoy in 1918. But there is nothing to verify this idea."

Mr Calder has looked at records of the 15th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Own) with which Pte Lee served, and has been in touch with the Commonwealth Graves Commission and the Red Cross.

He was told that some old records that might have solved the mystery were destroyed during the Blitz in the Second World War. Other relatives who might have known more died years ago.

His only hope now is that some old records will be found one day to reveal the truth about Pte Lee, who lived in Rawdon, near Leeds.

He was accompanied on the trip to France by Harry Wright and Martin Walker, both of Hutton Magna, near Barnard Castle. Mr Wright visited the grave of his great uncle, Pte William Allen, of the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry, who was killed in August 1916.