THE nephew of a First World War hero is remembering his relative on the centenary of his death.

Four years ago Barry Kerslake, of Brackendale Road, Bournemouth, came across a letter written to his uncle Leonard’s new wife informing her of his death under shellfire in Belgium on October 14, 2018.

This began a quest to find more about him, which eventually led to the revelation that Leonard had been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry.

Barry said none of his uncle’s four brothers and two sisters had ever spoken about Leonard to their children, and his deeds were at risk of being lost to history.

"Like everyone in that war he was a hero and it is important to keep his memory alive," said Barry.

"There are a younger generation of Kerslakes who knew nothing about him. It is just a shame we know so little of his earlier life, before he was killed aged 21, just days before the end of the war."

Barry, 85, said he hoped other families would be inspired to research their wartime ancestors. "The memory can so easily fade away otherwise."

Leonard was killed near Courtrai, just months after his marriage to a then-17-year-old Christina Lodge.

“I miss him a great deal myself,” the officer wrote in the letter to Mrs Kerslake, about whom nothing more is known.

“We were attacking the armoury in the morning of the 14th of October last when your husband was killed by a shell which burst close to him.”

The officer also told Leonard’s widow about his medal, won after he “rushed a machine gun post and succeeded in turning the gun on the enemy”, holding off a counter-attack.

According to Barry’s research, Leonard was born in Bournemouth in 1898 and raised in Springbourne.

He joined the Army early in the war when he was just 16, serving briefly with an unidentified Indian regiment before joining the Fourth Battalion, the Worcestershire Regiment.

Posted in Flanders, the battalion took part in the Battle of Courtrai on October 14, 1918. Smoke shells from the British artillery created a dense fog over the battlefield, into which the infantry advanced suffering many casualties – 120 on the first day, including Lance Corporal Kerslake.

Leonard Kerslake is buried with an unknown soldier at Ledeghem Cemetery in Belgium.