THE last member of the Tank Corps to be killed in the First World War has been identified – and he died just days before the Armistice in the very last tank battle.

Eric Robinson had also taken part in the very first tank attack on September 15, 1916, and had served throughout, receiving injuries and being awarded the Military Cross and Bar.

The Tank Museum in Bovington and historian Stephen Pope have uncovered the poignant story of the soldier who was aged 26 when he died on November 4, 1918.

He and his crew fought in the first ever tank battle at Flers-Courcelette in France in September 1916.

Despite a friendly fire incident he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in command after his crew had to dig out their tank.

In the following two months he was commanding two tanks that were hit and destroyed.

During the German Spring Offensive in 1918 he was wounded, but returned to be awarded a Bar to his MC at the Battle of Amiens, for moving on foot under heavy German shellfire to direct his tanks.

At the final large battle of the war, The Battle of the Sambre, on November 4, during which famed war poet Wilfred Owen was killed, Robinson commanded tanks that supported his unit during the fighting.

Robinson died as the tanks were withdrawing, but the exact circumstances are unknown. He was buried where he fell, but his body was later re-interred at the Highland Cemetery, Le Cateau.

Historian Stephen Pope said: “I think that the lesson of Eric’s death, as with Wilfred Owen and all those who died in November 1918, was that the British Army and its Allies were committed to the defeat of the German Army in the field and bringing the war to an end, whatever losses were required.”