NEWS CHANNEL
Published: 26/08/2009 00:00 -
Updated: 23/02/2010 13:35
Decades of quiet on the First World War's Western Front have been disturbed by the exhumation of soldiers' bodies from a mass grave in the village of Fromelles.
The hope is that some of the fallen, seven of whom came from Milton Keynes, can be identified.
Reporter JESSICA CUNNIFFE travelled to France as the final few bodies were being excavated.
(Media 1877)
As they went off to war they were each known by a unique service number.
Now, as the bones of First World War soldiers are carefully lifted from the soil, they are being given a new number, denoting where their body was found.
In this corner of a foreign field, osteoarchaeologists - who specialise in recovering human remains - dust the nameless but numbered corpses in a marquee.
As the white-suited specialists lie facedown on planks of wood that bridge the metre-deep Grave 5, two skeletons look back up at them.
It is the first time daylight has touched them since the Germans cleared hundreds of battle-battered bodies, heaped them on a hand-pushed railway and filled six of the eight graves they had dug 93 years ago.
Now, as specialists dig and dust their way through Pheasant Wood, they learn that the soldiers' bodies were layed out methodically by the Germans.
Since the excavation began in May, they have exhumed 222 of these. Around 30 are thought to remain.
Part Time Team, part crime scene, this bizarre production line, which starts at this grave and ends at another, intends to match up the soldiers' body numbers with their service numbers.
Even in 2009, finding bodies is not unusual on theWesternFront. Farmers in Belgium and France come across limbs almost as frequently as shells and shrapnel.
But, as Steve Martin, co-chairman of the Fromelles management board, said: "This is the largest recovery of FirstWorld War dead I'm aware of, being done at a level of scientific rigour not done before." The two-day Battle of Fromelles was, according to Peter Francis of the Commonwealth and War Graves Commission, 'an absolute disaster'.
It intended to divert German resources from the Battle of the Somme, sending soldiers over the top to essentially say 'shell and shoot us instead'.
The pointless attack started on July 19, 1916, when the British 61st and 5th Australian divisions were faced with, as one survivor put it, 'bullets swishing in a flat criss-crossed lattice of death'.
The result was 1,780 Australians and 503 Britons dead.
Nearly a century on, it is not khakicoloured figures but specialists in green overalls that swarm the area. Shellfire has been replaced with posters depicting poison gas, fuses and detonators, warning 'do not touch, inform your supervisor'.
Instead of bunkers, portacabins fill the fields.
One of these, a makeshift mortuary, contains library-like shelves that hold 45 plastic boxes - 45 bodies.
Body G3 1973b is labelled 'for processing'.
Having been photographed in the radiography room, it is ready for the wet room, where eight sets of bones are washed each day.
The team's painstaking work is punctuated by reminders of the reality of war, such as one specialist who found a skeleton with a train ticket from Fremantle to Perth - a return.
Body G3 1973b will soon make its way to the anthropology room, where it will be laid out in anatomical form.
Here the experts can gauge the age, height, dental health, lifestyle, ancestry, ailments and facial features of the solider, recording anything that could help identify him.
Many veterans would not speak about what they saw during the war, but these soldiers' remains tell the experts a great deal.
For one thing, the bones are noticeably scarred. One skeleton, for example, was apparently shot through the back and throat. It lies next to another whose abdomen was torn apart by shrapnel.
Over in the finds room, Kate Brady, an artefacts and research specialist, sorts through the eyelets, boots, buckles, crucifixes, coins and socks.
The things they are found with - even still wearing - provide an insight into life on the front line.
For example, aluminium rings, crafted from the fuses from German shells, reveal the boredom and resourcefulness in the trenches.
Most poignant was one mud-preserved keepsake - a tiny leather heart, sewn up around the edges, containing a lock of human hair.
During its journey body G3 1973b will have its DNA recorded.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence's Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre will compile a database of the DNA of the casualties' relatives.
Sue Raftree, who is co-ordinating the search, said: "We're delighted that we can find the families and take them forward in the project. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we may find their relative, though the likelihood is slim." So far 131 have come forward, three in relation to Milton Keynes soldiers.
Nearby they are building what will be the final destination for body G3 1973b: a new cemetery, where burials will start in February 2010.
So after a war that largely took place below ground level - in the trenches, dugouts, tunnels and unmarked graves - that is where the bodies will remain, but this time with the honour they deserve.
■ If you think you are related to one of the soldiers, call Sue Raftree on 01452 712612 ext 6303.
The hope is that some of the fallen, seven of whom came from Milton Keynes, can be identified.
Reporter JESSICA CUNNIFFE travelled to France as the final few bodies were being excavated.
(Media 1877)
As they went off to war they were each known by a unique service number.
Now, as the bones of First World War soldiers are carefully lifted from the soil, they are being given a new number, denoting where their body was found.
In this corner of a foreign field, osteoarchaeologists - who specialise in recovering human remains - dust the nameless but numbered corpses in a marquee.
As the white-suited specialists lie facedown on planks of wood that bridge the metre-deep Grave 5, two skeletons look back up at them.
It is the first time daylight has touched them since the Germans cleared hundreds of battle-battered bodies, heaped them on a hand-pushed railway and filled six of the eight graves they had dug 93 years ago.
Now, as specialists dig and dust their way through Pheasant Wood, they learn that the soldiers' bodies were layed out methodically by the Germans.
Since the excavation began in May, they have exhumed 222 of these. Around 30 are thought to remain.
Part Time Team, part crime scene, this bizarre production line, which starts at this grave and ends at another, intends to match up the soldiers' body numbers with their service numbers.
Even in 2009, finding bodies is not unusual on theWesternFront. Farmers in Belgium and France come across limbs almost as frequently as shells and shrapnel.
But, as Steve Martin, co-chairman of the Fromelles management board, said: "This is the largest recovery of FirstWorld War dead I'm aware of, being done at a level of scientific rigour not done before." The two-day Battle of Fromelles was, according to Peter Francis of the Commonwealth and War Graves Commission, 'an absolute disaster'.
It intended to divert German resources from the Battle of the Somme, sending soldiers over the top to essentially say 'shell and shoot us instead'.
The pointless attack started on July 19, 1916, when the British 61st and 5th Australian divisions were faced with, as one survivor put it, 'bullets swishing in a flat criss-crossed lattice of death'.
The result was 1,780 Australians and 503 Britons dead.
Nearly a century on, it is not khakicoloured figures but specialists in green overalls that swarm the area. Shellfire has been replaced with posters depicting poison gas, fuses and detonators, warning 'do not touch, inform your supervisor'.
Instead of bunkers, portacabins fill the fields.
One of these, a makeshift mortuary, contains library-like shelves that hold 45 plastic boxes - 45 bodies.
Body G3 1973b is labelled 'for processing'.
Having been photographed in the radiography room, it is ready for the wet room, where eight sets of bones are washed each day.
The team's painstaking work is punctuated by reminders of the reality of war, such as one specialist who found a skeleton with a train ticket from Fremantle to Perth - a return.
Body G3 1973b will soon make its way to the anthropology room, where it will be laid out in anatomical form.
Here the experts can gauge the age, height, dental health, lifestyle, ancestry, ailments and facial features of the solider, recording anything that could help identify him.
Many veterans would not speak about what they saw during the war, but these soldiers' remains tell the experts a great deal.
For one thing, the bones are noticeably scarred. One skeleton, for example, was apparently shot through the back and throat. It lies next to another whose abdomen was torn apart by shrapnel.
Over in the finds room, Kate Brady, an artefacts and research specialist, sorts through the eyelets, boots, buckles, crucifixes, coins and socks.
The things they are found with - even still wearing - provide an insight into life on the front line.
For example, aluminium rings, crafted from the fuses from German shells, reveal the boredom and resourcefulness in the trenches.
Most poignant was one mud-preserved keepsake - a tiny leather heart, sewn up around the edges, containing a lock of human hair.
During its journey body G3 1973b will have its DNA recorded.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence's Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre will compile a database of the DNA of the casualties' relatives.
Sue Raftree, who is co-ordinating the search, said: "We're delighted that we can find the families and take them forward in the project. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we may find their relative, though the likelihood is slim." So far 131 have come forward, three in relation to Milton Keynes soldiers.
Nearby they are building what will be the final destination for body G3 1973b: a new cemetery, where burials will start in February 2010.
So after a war that largely took place below ground level - in the trenches, dugouts, tunnels and unmarked graves - that is where the bodies will remain, but this time with the honour they deserve.
■ If you think you are related to one of the soldiers, call Sue Raftree on 01452 712612 ext 6303.
