THE grave of Robert Baker, a newlywed soldier from Nuneham Courtenay, stands among thousands in a lonely graveyard in Germany.

The 21-year-old Private from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry died when his glider crashed in a forest on the Dutch German border in March 1945 leaving behind his wife Dorothy, who was just pregnant with the couple’s son Bruce.

Bruce, now 66, has only recently begun to research the wartime record of his father and, coincidentally, his service will be remembered on Saturday in a little-known ceremony that takes place in the military chapel at Christ Church Cathedral every other month. Representatives from the military read out the names of five soldiers from the 5th Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars killed in each of the two wars, then five from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

Last month organiser Colonel Mike Vince urged Oxford Mail readers to help find relatives of the people being read out and the Private’s name was spotted in the Mail by a cousin of Mr Baker.

He forwarded the clipping to his home in West Sussex.

Mr Baker said: “I’m so pleased to see him remembered in this way.

“It is quite a poignant thing for us. I was surprised to see it, but very pleased.

“I only recently started researching my father this year, when my mother, who is now 88 and has dementia, went into a nursing home and I was packing up the house.

“We found a roll call with his name on it and gradually started to find out more.”

Mr Baker’s parents married in October 1944. He was born the following November.

Mr Baker, a grandfather-of-two, said: “It has been a very poignant year. I visited his grave on the Dutch-German border for the first time with my daughter.

“It was overwhelming.

“There was just row upon row of graves. And everyone from my father’s unit was there, all together and with the same date on the graves.”

Mr Baker and his family are unable to attend the ceremony on Saturday, but said it still meant a lot to them.

Ceremony organiser Colonel Vince said: “We are so pleased to have heard from a relative. To have had a call is fantastic.”

The Turning the Pages service is conducted by Canon Roland Meredith and begins at 11am in the military chapel. Other ceremonies will be held on March 3, May 5, June 23, September 1 and November 10.