A soldier who died more than 60 years after he was wounded in the Second World War may be one of the last direct fatalities to result from the conflict.

Leslie Croft was injured by shrapnel while fighting alongside the Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment in Italy in 1943.

He died aged 86 on Dec 31 from bronchopneumonia and a coroner has ruled that his illness was contracted because of the 63-year-old injury to his bowel.

Stanley Hooper, the Rotherham coroner, told the inquest into the old soldier's death: "I would rather speculate that Leslie Croft, with regards to his age, will be one of the last men to die from a wound suffered in World War Two.