BOVEY Tracey’s eighth war grave has been recognised by the Commonwealth commission.

This comes as the recently recognised home guard officer’s headstone was re-erected by the Bovey Tracey Heritage Trust.

Wallace John Taylor, who died on February 22, 1943, was buried in the town cemetery under a private headstone.

However, upon the Commonwealth War Grave Commission contacting Bovey Tracey Town Council to confirm that Wallace Taylor was buried in the town, the grave has since been recognised as a war grave.

As such, Bovey Tracey Heritage Trust applied to the Tracey Armshouse Trust for a grant to re-erect the headstone, which was completed on Friday, October 10.

Born in Bideford on April 4, 1894, Wallace John Taylor enlisted early in the Great War and was probably 1878 Saddler Wallace John Taylor of the Royal Field Artillery, who went to France on 31 August 1915.

After the war, he volunteered first as an air raid warden in 1939 and then, after its formation in 1940, for the Home Guard.

On February 21, 1943, he suffered a comminuted fracture of the femur from a single round from a machine-gun that was said to have gone off when placed on some drums of signal wire at Chudleigh Knighton Home Guard headquarters after use on a nearby range.

He was taken to Bovey Tracey cottage hospital and operated on, but died of shock resulting from his injuries on 22 February 1943, aged 48.