Battle of Aubers Ridge
The Battle of Aubers Ridge was fought by the British on 9 May 1915. British troops from General Sir Douglas Haig’s First Army took part in the action suffering 11,000 casualties in one day of fighting on a narrow front. For more information on the Battle click here.
FFFAIF Secretary, Chris Munro attended the Service of Remembrance of the 94th Anniversary of the Battle of Aubers Ridge on 9 May 2009 and has produced the following pictorial report.
94th Anniversary
Battle Aubers Ridge
Service of Remembrance
Aubers Ridge Service of Remembrance 9 May 2009
The commencement of the Service was heralded by The Passchendaele 1917 Pipes and Drums.
The Passchendaele 1917 Pipes and Drums
The memorial address was given by Mrs Victoria Burbidge with Carole Laignel, Secretary Fromelles & Weppes Terre de Mémoire 14-18 (Fromelles Museum) undertaking the role of translator for the service.
Mrs Victoria Burbidge and Mme Carole Laignel
A lone piper played Flowers of the Forest as wreaths were laid.
Passchaendaele 1917 Pipes & Drums' Lone Piper
Mrs Victoria Burbidge with her children laying a wreath on behalf of the people of Britain and Chris Munro laying a wreath on behalf of the people of Australia during the service
The wreaths were laid on the remains of one of the German bunkers drapped in the British & Australian flags.
British and Australian flags draped on remains of a German pillbox
Peter Barton laying a wreath on behalf of the GUARD team
Representatives of the Western Front Association and The British Legion laying wreaths
Descendants of British soldiers who died in The Battle of Aubers Ridge laying wreaths
The buglers from the Last Post Association, Ieper, played the Last Post and Reveille at the service.
Last Post Association Buglers who play at the Menin Gate, Ieper.
After the Service the Fromelles village hall hosted a display on the Battle of Aubers Ridge.
Fromelles' village hall
Historian Peter Barton, a member of the Glasgow University Archaeology Research Division (GUARD) team who carried out the preliminary dig at Pheasant Wood in 2008, supplied many of the photos and maps for the display.
A section of the photo display
Mayor Hubert Huchette, Mrs Victoria Burbidge, Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Chairman All Party Parliamentary War Graves and Battlefields Heritage Group), Mr Peter Barton (Historian and Co-Secretary All Party Parliamentary War Graves and Battlefields Heritage Group) and Mr David Symons (CWGC Director France)
6th Bavarian Reserve Division trench plan of the area now occupied by the Australian Memorial Park Fromelles from the research of Peter Barton
The wreaths and tributes from the service were later moved a short distance down the road to the Kennedy Memorial. This memorial was built to commemorate the memory of Captain Paul Adrian Kennedy, who was killed leading “B” Company of the 2nd Rifle Brigade on 9th May 1915. Captain Kennedy’s mother bought this plot of land after the war and erected the memorial in remembrance of her son and his colleagues who fell on the same day.
Kennedy Private Memorial Fromelles
Although the Battle for Aubers Ridge took place a year before the Australian Imperial Forces saw action on the Western Front, there were Australians who took part in the fighting. They included Sergeant Charles Holmes, of the 2nd Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, who was born in Adelaide, and died during the battle. Also Horace Mawdesley who was born in Geraldton, Western Australia, but was living in London when war broke out in August 1914. Enlisting in September, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade and was also killed in the Battle of Aubers Ridge. Neither soldier has a known grave.
LEST WE FORGET
The photos in this report were taken by Carole Laignel, Secretary Fromelles & Weppes Terre de Mémoire 14-18 (Fromelles Museum); Chris Munro, Secretary Families and Friends of the First AIF (FFFAIF) and Chloe Wootten, Communications Manager Australian Fromelles Project Group (AFPG).
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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.