London - Official claims to have found the body of John Kipling, only son of the patriotic author Rudyard Kipling, are wrong, according to a six-year investigation due out this autumn. The soldier, whose regiment was the Irish Guards, was only 18 when killed in September 1915 during the First World War.
His headstone, placed on a grave in France by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1992, is false. This is the verdict - reached "with much sadness" - of My Boy Jack?, a study by two established military authors, Tonie and Valmai Holt. Their finding is endorsed by an expert panel, which includes a judge and the museum curator of the Irish Guards.
Mr Michael Smith, secretary of the Kipling Society, said: "It is a shame. Most people had been led to believe by the commission that John had at last been laid to rest - and that Rudyard's soul need no longer be in torment."
