The first of 250 British and Australian soldiers excavated out of 6 World War I mass graves in northern France in 2008 has been reburied with full military honors in a new cemetery built specifically for the fallen of Fromelles. On Saturday, in a sombre but moving ceremony, the first of the unidentified soldiers – …
I first posted about the Fromelles battlefield dig last June. Now, after uncovering the remains of 250 World War I soldiers and 1200 of their artifacts (and running into some controversy in the process), the excavation at Pheasant Wood is coming to a close. The official last day of the dig is September 14th, but …
Read the full post →“Update: Fromelles dig comes to a close”
Remember the horrible sad fate of Australian troops who fought in the Battle of Fromelles in 1916? I posted a couple of months ago about a Scottish archaeologists finding a mass grave with remains of Australian Diggers. Well, the exhumation is still going on, and now the Australian and British governments have decided to join …
Read the full post →“Update: Australian dead at Fromelles to get cemetary”
November 11th is called Veterans Day in the United States, a federal holiday in honor of all military veterans, living and dead. It only became such in 1954, however. It started out as Armistice Day, a day to honor the fallen soldiers of World War I on the anniversary of the official cessation of hostilities …
Read the full post →“Remembering the original veterans of Veterans Day”
Fromelles is not a very well known battle. It was only engaged to act as a diversion for the German troops busy with the much showier carnage at the Somme, but as was so horrifyingly common in the history of “Someone had blundered” warfare, British General Richard Haking decided that the fake offensive should be …
