Search for WWI Australian graves
Archaeologists in northern France are trying to uncover mass grave of troops buried after ‘Australia’s worst 24-hours’.
A team of archaeologists is trying to uncover a mass grave of Australian soldiers, buried after the worst battle in the country’s history.
More than 7,000 troops were killed, injured or missing following the Battle of Fromelles which took place between July 19-20, 1916.
More than 5,000 of those who died in the overnight battle, intended to divert German troops away from the Battle of the Somme, were soldiers in the Australian Imperial Force.
Australian historian Ross McMullin has described the battle as “the worst 24-hours in Australia’s entire history”.
The work is being carried out by Glasgow University’s Archaeological Research Division (Guard).
Dig leader Tony Pollard said the team was concentrating on an area known as ‘pit five’ where a small amount of human remains had been found.
"We can now even see the shape of the German spades that were used to cut the pit," he said, adding that metal rings from German stretchers used to carry the bodies had also been found.
"We hope that at the end of the day we will be well down into pit five, and at that point we'll expose a broader expanse to human remains in the bottom of it."
"That process will continue from pit to pit."
On the site of the nearby battlefield stands a statue of an Australian soldier carrying a wounded comrade, while the cemetery contains the remains of 410 unidentified Australians and the names of some 1,300 men who have no known grave.
Photo: Australian soldiers waiting to attack during the Battle of Fromelles.
Only three of the men in the photo survived and they were wounded.
