Alfred Gartner, a German paratrooper, was killed on a summer's day fighting in the fields of Normandy. Yesterday, in a simple and moving ceremony at the German military cemetery at La Cambe, which lies squarely in the middle of Utah and Omaha beaches, he was buried.

His body, or what little remained of it, was found by a farmer only last week in one of the traditional bocage hedges that define the lanes and fields of Normandy.

A cow grazing in a field at La Luzerne, north-east of St Lo, blundered into the hedge and dislodged the bones that had lain there undisturbed since 1944. Part of the skull, a bone from an arm and some ribs were found alongside tunic buttons and a rusting pistol. Also found were Alfred's dog tags, containing the date of his mobilisation, which allowed the Deutsche Dienststelle, custodian of the military records of 18 million German soldiers from the two world wars, to identify him. He was part of the 6th Parachute Regiment reformed in January 1944 and sent to help to beat off the threat of invasion on the north French coastline.

Records show that he was killed by an enemy grenade as his unit fought unsuccessfully to stop the American infantry advance towards St Lo, which they finally took on July 18, 1944. It is thought the force of the exploding grenade blew him into the bocage - ancient, shoulder-high hedges which provided perfect cover for the entrenched Germans as the Allies pushed inland from the Normandy beaches. Infantry troops had to fight their way forward field by field and even tanks found it hard to make progress through the bocage.

Yesterday, under a cobalt blue sky, Alfred Gartner joined his comrades who lie two to a grave under the immaculate oak- and beech-shaded lawns. Finding a soldier's remains is not uncommon in Normandy, where cemeteries contain 177,000 soldiers, 80,000 of them German. Most lost their lives in the battles that raged across the Norman countryside between D-Day, June 6, and Aug 20, when German resistance ended in 1944.

Alfred left behind in Germany a wife and a young son. His widow, frail and now in her 80s, has been told of the find as has his son, now in his 60s and approaching retirement, but neither could be present at yesterday's 25-minute ceremony.

An honour guard, fittingly of German paratroops, was present as his remains, in a small coffin with the German flag draped over it, was lowered into the grave, which he will share with Herman Sarr, 37, who was killed on July 15, 1944. A party of German veterans, old men with silver hair and walking sticks but smart on parade in black blazers and grey flannels, snapped to attention as the coffin was lowered. Their senior officer, Alexander Uhlig, of the 6th Parachute Regiment, who was awarded the Knight Order of the King's Cross for his valour in Normandy, wiped away tears as a simple floral tribute, bedecked with a riband of black, red and gold, was laid at the graveside. With a last salute from the paras, both old and new, the coffin was lowered.

Eventually Alfred Gartner's name will be recorded on the plaque which covers the grave. For the time being it will say only: "Ein Deutscher Soldat."