{"id":4966,"date":"2009-07-16T12:33:52","date_gmt":"2009-07-16T01:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fffaif.wordpress.com\/?p=4966"},"modified":"2009-07-16T12:33:52","modified_gmt":"2009-07-16T01:33:52","slug":"fromelles-update-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=4966","title":{"rendered":"*Fromelles' Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE ON PROGRESS AT FROMELLES<\/span><\/p>\n

Greg Combet, Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science, today announced that the project to recover and re-inter Australian and British World War One soldiers discovered in France remains on track.<\/p>\n

Over 100 sets of remains have now been retrieved and the original estimate that the site held up to 400 soldiers has now been revised to approximately 300.<\/p>\n

The archaeological excavation operation at Pheasant Wood in Fromelles began in\u00a0May 2009 and is due to be completed in September 2009.<\/p>\n

Four of the eight burial pits have been fully excavated and the team from Oxford Archaeology have commenced work on two of the remaining four.<\/p>\n

“These soldiers are being treated with the utmost care so that we ensure that their sacrifice is being honoured in the process,” said Mr Combet.<\/p>\n

“In addition to the recovery of remains, methodical and thorough analysis of artefacts buried with them will assist in the possibility of identification of the soldiers who died 93 years ago.<\/p>\n

“Many items are being found with the soldiers that indicate the force in which they served but identification of individuals will rely on a combination of anthropological, archaeological, historical and other scientific data.”<\/p>\n

Mr Combet is anticipating results of a pilot study to sample DNA from the remains by the end of July.<\/p>\n

“I am hopeful that a successful result will be returned and DNA matching with living descendants can assist in the identification process.”<\/p>\n

If people believe that they are relatives of a soldier who died at the Battle of Fromelles, they are encouraged to contact the Australian Army on (free call) 1800\u00a0019 090, or visit http:\/\/www.army.gov.au\/fromelles\/<\/a>to register their interest.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

The Families and Friends of the First AIF<\/strong><\/em> thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers\u00a0buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood by\u00a0German soldiers following the Battle of Fromelles\u00a0on 19\/20 July 1916\u00a0dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds\u00a0the joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE ON PROGRESS AT FROMELLES Greg Combet, Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science, today announced that the project to recover and re-inter Australian and British World War One soldiers discovered in France remains on track. Over 100 sets of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}