Veteran soldier Jeff Haward, now 97, has turned detective in an effort to trace the family of a former soldier, who, like him, saw action in a town on the Dutch-German border, during the Second World War.

Mr Haward, who lives at Lower Stoke, fought throughout the war as a machine gunner with the Middlesex Regiment. He saw action at Dunkirk, El Alamein and Normandy.

In 1945 he was in Holland, including the village of Dinxperlo. Since then he has been back several times to visit friends made during the war and members of their families.

Last year he received a letter from one of these, Chris Seesink, who lives in Dinxperlo.

He told him a small cache of letters, from the wife of a British soldier to her husband, had been found. They dated back to March 1945.

“We thought it would be a wonderful thing if we could trace the family of this couple, and return the letters to them,” said Mr Seesink. “They were addressed to a Pt Ron Goddard who served with the 51st Highland Division.

“There are five letters. They were left on the table at a farmhouse in Dinxperlo that belonged to a Mr Ter Horst. It was from this direction that the 51st HD entered the village to liberate it.

“There was quite a battle and a lot of houses were damaged. It took three days for the Allies to capture the town, which was then a very small village. In total there were 39,000 grenades fired on Dinxperlo, which lies across the German border.

“One side of the main street is Dutch the other is German.”

The address on the letters is 17th Platoon, D Company, 7th Battalion, A&SH, BLA. The first is dated March 19, 1945.

At this time the division had joined up with the Canadians and taken part in Operation Veritable, to clear the Germans from the area between the Maas and the Rhine.

Shortly afterwards they took part in Operation Plunder, which included the crossing of the Rhine.

“Sadly the house where the letters were found was torn down a few years ago to make way for new industry,” said Mr Seesink.

Now Mr Haward plans to get the media involved, in the hope of finding the family of Ron and Winnie Goddard, whose wartime address was 5 Gervaise Terrace, Fort Road, West Tilbury, Essex.

Of course, the family may well have moved several times since then, and there is even a chance that they may have crossed to the Medway side of the Thames.

“I doubt the lady who wrote these letters, or her husband, are still alive,” said Mr Haward.

“But their children or grandchildren might be. Perhaps there are members of the Goddard family still living in the Tilbury area.

“It would be nice to return these letters to the people to whom they really belong.”