A paratrooper killed in the bloody Battle of Arnhem and buried in an unmarked grave has finally been identified.

Lance Corporal William Loney will now get a headstone bearing his name – 73 years after he died in the Second World War offensive.

The 26-year-old from C Company, The 2nd Parachute Battalion, was dropped into Holland on September 17, 1944, as part of Operation Market Garden – the Allied attempt to capture crossings over the Rhine which inspired the 1977 movie A Bridge Too Far.

(Image: MEN)

L/Cpl Loney – nicknamed “Ginger” – was mowed down in street fighting later that day.

A local boy who saw the shooting said: “The British never had a chance.”

L/Cpl Loney’s body lay in a Dutch cemetery with a headstone listing him as “A Soldier of the 1939-45 War.”

But research by the UK’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre plus Dutch and British historians, saw the lost hero, from Dewsbury, West Yorks, finally identified.

(Image: MEN)

(Image: MEN)

The new headstone will be dedicated at the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery next month.

No close family has yet been found but Mr Bennett still hopes relatives will join him at the ceremony on September 13.