V-B never forgets

The following article appeared in The Melbourne Age newspaper on 31 March 2009:

Diggers remembered as French town gives back

Saying they will “never forget” the valour of Australian diggers, residents of the French town of Villers-Bretonneux have pledged funds to rebuild a bushfire-affected Victorian school.

At the end of World War I, Victorian school children donated money to rebuild the school at Villers-Bretonneux, after Australian soldiers recaptured the town from the Germans in bitter hand-to-hand combat on April 24, 1918.

When the town’s residents heard about the Victorian bushfires, the local French-Australian association started a campaign urging members and residents to donate money.

Villers-Bretonneux’s town mayor Patrick Simon and the local council have committed one euro per resident (€4135 or $A7984), and the town will choose an Australian school to rebuild.

“This way Australia will forever stay in the hearts of the people from Villers-Bretonneux,” French-Australian Association president Jean-Pierre Tranchard said.

Villers-Bretonneux was reduced to rubble during the fierce battle in World War I and more than 1200 Australian soldiers were killed.

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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds Minister Snowdon and his British counterpart, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans, Kevan Jones MP, for their joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.