KEIGHLEY historians have probed the hidden background of a hero from the town who died at Arnhem.

Volunteers from the Men of Worth Project investigated Jack Carr’s background in Keighley before he flew off to his death in the notorious Second World War battle.

Last week the Telegraph & Argus’s sister paper, the Keighley News, revealed how Corporal Carr was among six airborne soldiers from the Border Regiment given new gravestones in a war cemetery near the site of the Operation Market Garden fighting.

The unmarked graves of Cpl Carr and his comrades were identified by Dutch Netherlands Army researchers, and last month a re-dedication service was held at Oosterbeek Cemetery.

The Border Regiment used gliders to land behind enemy lines in 1944 as part of an unsuccessful operation to take eight key bridges spanning canals along the Dutch/German border.

The Ministry of Defence this month issued information about most of the six men but could only give Cpl Carr’s name and that he came from Keighley. After hearing about the rededication service, Men of Worth researcher Andy Wade took to the archives. He found “pretty scant” information about the young man on Ancestry, the leading UK genealogy website but had more luck on a trawl through Keighley News cuttings from 1944 when the newspaper reported first the names of local men who went missing at Arnhem, then a month later the names of those confirmed dead. Cpl Carr appeared in both reports.

Mr Wade discovered that Cpl Carr, 22, had worked in the Keighley Co-operative Society bakery department before the war.

His parents lived at Edensor Road, Keighley, and his wife was serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

Cpl Carr had been in the Army for four years, serving with the Border Regiment in Sicily and Italy before the Allied assault on Europe.

Men of Worth volunteers plan to transcribe both Keighley News articles and make digital copies as part of their efforts to chronicle the stories of all Keighley people who served in both world wars.