Corporal Raymond Harker died south of "Bulkenaar". Harker was first buried in a field grave in Brembosch and then reburied in the cemetery of Bergen op Zoom.

Raymond was born in November 1918 just days after the end of the First World War and would die in the Second World War pushing the Nazis out of the Netherlands probably not knowing that back home in Finghall, his wife had given birth the day before to their daughter. He came from a large farming family, and in 1943, in Finghall church, he married Doris, from Todmorden, who regularly visited her relations in the village. The couple are pictured in the attachment.

He joined the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, and landed on the Normandy beaches on June 11, 1944, a month after D-Day. He pushed through northern Europe to take part in the liberation of the Netherlands. But at 9.45am on October 28, he was one of four men from his battalion’s C Company that was killed by German resistance near the small city of Roosendaal.

It seems impossible that he could have known that the day before, Doris had safely given birth to their daughter, Jennifer, who now lives in Todmorden.