A man is searching for the family of a hero soldier killed while liberating a Dutch town from the Nazis during the Second World War.
Berry Branten, 34, from Vlijmen in the Netherlands, has spent almost 20 years trying to locate the living descendants of Stanley Wright, who is believed to have lived in Dundee before the conflict.
The hunt for Stanley’s relatives began in the early 2000s, when Berry was clearing out his grandfather’s house and found a box containing letters and a picture of a soldier.
After years of research, Berry has identified the fallen soldier as Stanley Wright from Dundee, who was killed on October 29 1944.
Now he’s asking Tele readers to help him with the final piece of the jigsaw, and return the items to Stanley’s family.
Berry said: “My grandfather had never seen these letters or the picture, so they were from my grandmother, who died in 1989.
“In the letters a woman called Ella Crangle talks about her brother Stanley, and thanks the local population for taking care of her brother’s grave.
“She says that a son-in-law from her mother visited the grave and was surprised to see that it was being taken care of.
“She also thanks the ladies who attended a memorial service and laid a wreath. We suspect that our grandmother was one of these ladies.”
With the information they found in the box, Berry and his family started looking for Stanley Crangle but soon found they were looking for the wrong person.
Berry said: “The name Stanley Wright came up, he served with the 274 Royal Engineers of the 51st Highland Division and died on October 29 1944.
Ella also reveals in the letters that her brother was training to become a welder, and was an active sportsman.
Berry added: “Stanley was 21 years old and lived with his mother who was a widow.
“During his younger years he lived in Australia. His father died helping to fight a forest fire in Victoria eight months before he was born.”
Stanley was killed during an offensive by the 51st Highland Division to liberate Vlijmen from German occupation.
Berry said: “Stanley died while on a recon mission for two bridges used to cross a canal. It was one of the last German bridgeheads south of the River Meuse.”
Berry’s search threatened to come to a standstill, but he kept looking.
Berry said: “In March I started to search for more information. That led me to Jack Didden, a local historian and author of numerous books regarding the liberation by, among others, the 51st Highland division.
“Within weeks he delivered me a German war diary, British war diary and a map with the location of the battlefield grave of Stanley.
“We found Stanley’s grave at the Commonwealth cemetery in Bergen op Zoom. We visited and left flowers.”
“I also found out Stanley was a son to Benjamin and Belle Wright of Dundee, and he was probably born in Aberdeen.
“Now that we know how and where disaster struck Stanley’s life and family, we would like to find his family to see if the man in the picture is indeed Stanley Wright. And we would like to share the picture, letters and the information with his family.”
If you have any information that could help Berry find the family of Stanley please email bbranten@hotmail.com.
