The battle for the missing diggers from Fromelles is far from over.
As the Background to the Battle of Fromelles reveals, there had been an unsuccessful battle at Fromelles in May 1915 with heavy casualties and the planning for the July 1916 was characterised by changes and confusion.
The result was a heavy loss of life among the soldiers of the 5th Division, AIF with 1,917 killed among the 5,533 casualties. Many of these soldiers have headstones marked “A Soldier of the Great War” with 618 of soldiers having their names on their headstones. Some of the soldiers remained unaccounted for in British and Commonwealth War Records.
Photo: Fallen British soldiers Fromelles 20 July 1916 (www.stahlgewitter.com)
Following a visit to the Fromelles battlefield and VC Corner Cemetery in 2002, Lambis Englezos analysed the list of the 1299 names of the Australian soldiers with no known graves and compared this with the number of “unknown” soldiers buried, and identified that there were 163 with no record of a place of burial. His research using the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau Files confirmed that 161 were on the German death list and recorded as being buried by the German Army at Pheasant Wood. Further analysis brought the names of another 9 soldiers listed on the Villers Bretonneux memorial and included in the Red Cross files, giving a total of 170 Australian soldiers recorded as buried at a location adjacent to Pheasant Wood on the outskirts of the Fromelles.
His investigations also showed no evidence that the Graves Recovery Unit had exhumed any bodies from this location during the post war period. In 2005, the Australian Department of Defence formed a Panel of Investigation, which reviewed the evidence and concluded that there was sufficient doubt that the bodies had been recovered and re-interred as to warrant further investigation.
In 2007, at the request of the Australian government, a non-invasive geophysical survey was conducted by British archaeologists from Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD). The first archaeological search in May 2007, led by Dr Tony Pollard showed that the Pheasant Wood area had been virtually unchanged since 1916 and revealed signs of burial pits, consistent with mass graves for hundreds of soldiers adjacent to Pheasant Wood.
Photo: Pheasant Wood April 2008
Using ground penetrating radar the GUARD team reported that: “it was beyond doubt that this site was used as a burial ground”. The GUARD team returned in May 2008 this time excavating the site to confirm that the soldiers buried by the German Army were still located in the pits they dug after the Battle of Fromelles.
There are 173 Australian ‘missing’ soldiers of Fromelles. Each has been named and for a significant number we can put faces and family details to the names. Today we are proud to introduce Private Albert Williamson (No4249) of 54th Battalion AIF.
Albert Williamson was a 22 year old labourer from Canowindra in country New South Wales when he enlisted in the AIF in August 1915. Private Albert Williamson embarked from Australia as a reinforcement of 2nd Battalion and soon after his arrival in Egypt Private Williamson was transferred to the newly formed 54th Battalion. Private Williamson is listed amongst the thirty soldiers missing from the 54th Battalion after the Battle of Fromelles.
Source: Our Gift to The Empire by Ross StClaire.
The newspaper clipping above was printed in the Sydney Mail on 20th August 1919. In the feature Mrs Cecilia Williamson, 3 years after the Battle of Fromelles, is seeking to find more information on how her son, the 10th of her 13 children, had died. It is not known if she received any further details from any other soldiers.
Private Williamson’s Service Record gives no details of his death except that he was reported missing on 21st July 1916 and a Court of Inquiry nearly twelve months later resulted in an entry officially listing him as killed in action on 20th July 1916. Importantly Private Williamson’s Service Record does contain the original German ‘death voucher’ which was completed by the German Army when Private Williamson was buried and was returned with his identification tags to the Australian Army via the German Red Cross. A photograph of the original document can be seen in the Service Record of Private Albert Williamson available on line at the National Archives of Australia.
Reference to this German document is also found in The Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau Files, which can be viewed on line at the Australian War Memorial website.
Nearly 92 years later some of Mrs Cecilia Williamson’s questions about the fate have an opportunity to be answered.
It is now time that these fallen Australian soldiers of Fromelles are afforded the same respect and laid to rest with the dignity bestowed on the Zonnebeke Five in April 2007. These five Australian soldiers from World War 1 were discovered when a new gas pipe line was being dug in Belgium.
Photos: ‘Zonnebeke Five’ Graves at Buttes New British Cemetery
Their bodies were exhumed and two of the soldiers were identified using DNA testing. Sergeant G. Calder and Private J. Hunter, along with their Anzac mates, are now buried in Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood. Private Hunter’s epitaph reads:
BELOVED SON OF HARRY AND
EMILY HUNTER NANANGO QLD
AT REST AFTER BEING
LOST FOR 90 YEARS
FFFAIF Policy Statement
The Families and Friends of the First AIF believes that the Australian Government through the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs should commit the to re-burial of the “missing of Fromelles” with individual graves and headstones in a new Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Pheasant Wood after DNA testing.
FROMELLES IS NOT HONOURED ON THE NATIONAL OR ANY STATE MEMORIAL IN AUSTRALIA.
FFFAIF SUPPORTS ALL EFFORTS TO RECOGNISE FROMELLES ON OR AT THE NATIONAL AND ALL STATE MEMORIALS THAT PRESENTLY LIST BATTLES BY NAME.
Copies of Our Gift to The Empire are available from the author Ross St.Claire. Ross can be contacted at indelec@bigpond.net.au
Photo: Front cover Our Gift to The Empire 54th Australian Infantry Battalion 1916-1919 [ISBN 0-6464589-7-3]
Call back tomorrow for further updates.