Thousands of fallen Aussie Diggers lie resting in unvisited graves

MORE than 46,000 Australians were killed on the Western Front — and sadly most have never been visited by family in their final resting place. Here’s why ...

MORE than 46,000 Australians were killed on the Western Front — and most have never been visited by family in their final resting place.

With almost 8000 Aussies trekking to Villers-Bretonneux for the dawn service today — many to honour a lost relative — experts have estimated the number of Australians who have lain alone, although not forgotten, for 100 years in France and Belgium.

“I would say 60 to 70 per cent of the many who died have not been commemorated personally by family at their grave,” said Romain Fathi, a lecturer in Australian History at Flinders University.

As part of his investigation into Australian travel to the World War One battlefields, Dr Fathi has analysed comments in cemetery visitor books.

Final touches around before the opening next week of Sir John Monash Center outside Villers Bretonneux, France. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

“Looking at visitor books, there is only a very small proportion of people commemorating someone they knew of. Other (Australian travellers) may go and visit World War One sites but they have nobody to commemorate; however they want to relate to the Anzac narrative.”

Between 1916 and 1918 there were 181,00 Australian casualties on the Western Front. A quarter of those were fatal — by far the biggest proportion of the 60,000 Aussies killed in all theatres of that war.

These men were nearly all buried in France and Belgium — most in known graves, but up to 18,000 in unmarked graves, according to Dr Fathi. More than 10,700 of those with no known resting place are honoured at the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, on the site of the famous battle fought 100 years ago today.

For the best part of a century, with trans-global travel so expensive, only a tiny proportion of the fallen were visited by relatives. In the past three decades travel has become easier, and the Anzac legend grown ever stronger at home — perhaps in part because of that distance — which means that though the connections have become more stretched across the generations, strong links have formed even where there is no direct lineage.

Australian memorial just outside Villers-Bretonneux. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

One of the diggers visited for the first time this year was Brisbane field medic Arthur James Adams, who lies at Warloy Cemetery. Yesterday flowers were laid at his grave by writer Amy Hutchinson, who spent a year recreating his life every day for the award-winning AnzacLive.

“It broke my heart knowing no one has ever visited Arthur,” Amy said. “His family, who are alive today, were not aware he was interred at Warloy.”

Noted historian and former Deputy Director of the Australian War Memorial Michael McKernan said that while it is very hard to exactly quantify the number of visits to graves, he believes many remain unseen by family — and that such pilgrimages are a recent phenomenon.

“My grandfather’s two older brothers were killed near Villers-Bretonneux in 1918, a month apart,” he said. “Despite my grandfather’s lifelong devotion to their memory, he never had the opportunity to visit the graves of his brothers … I was the first member of our family, and possibly still the only member of the family, to have stood in front of the graves themselves.”

Arthur James Adams, a Brisbane medic, lies at Warloy Cemetery. Picture: Supplied

There is increasing interest in the Anzac legend both at home and overseas, with visits to the battlefields increasing — and often becoming extraordinary experiences for those that go. Yet the number of Australians going to the battlezones is a small proportion of total Aussie travellers to France, according to Dr Fathi.

He said that in 2014, for example such war remembrance trips were taken by only four or five per cent of Australian travellers to France.

Fellow World War One expert Dr Peter Stanley agreed.

“My educated guess would be that most graves have not been specifically visited,” he said. “Australian visitors to French battlefields are highly motivated, but not all of them have an Anzac in the family and there’s unsubstantiated assumptions about how dedicated Australians are to their memory.”

GROWING ‘UNDERSTANDING’ ABOUT INDIGENOUS SOLDIERS

Joe Flick has been visiting graves around northern France. Picture: News Corp

“I’VE brought my Pop’s compass so, 100 years later, he’s got direction and I have direction - all those lost boys have got some direction.”

Like many Australians, Joe Flick has spent the past week visiting graves around northern France.

He hasn’t been visiting fallen relatives - his own grandfather, Michael “Mick” Flick made it back alive after World War One, although it was “home” to an Australia that was less than welcoming - but rather, those whose family cannot make it.

Mr Flick, a project officer for the New South Wales land council, is paying respects at the graves of indigenous Great War soldiers - laying wreaths and playing the clap sticks as a long-awaited salute from the land they left so far away.

It is a mission he began four years ago, when he started advising the French managers of the famous Australian museum at Villers-Bretonneux about the role played by Aboriginal soldiers in the war.

About 1000 are known to have served, though recent research indicates it could have been as many as 1500, Mr Flick said ahead of today’s dawn service at the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, attended by Prince Charles, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and 8000 others.

Those indigenous soldiers include men such as Distinguished Conduct Medal holder William Allen Irwin, one of those whose grave he visited this week - and of course his own Pop Mick, who served in the 29th Battalion and was wounded.

“This year I have come primarily to honour my Pop,” Mr Flick said. “He was a fine soldier, well liked by officers and other soldiers alike. When he was in the trenches he was treated as any other soldier, there was no colour difference.”

That changed on Mick’s return.

“Coming through the Heads he would have been as happy as any other soldier, but then it began.”

By “it” Mr Flick means prejudice.

“He was not even eligible for the soldier’s pension,” he said.

This year, Mr Flick has brought to France the pocket compass his father used here a century ago, in the symbolic hope it can guide all to a better understanding of the indigenous Diggers.

“People are getting more of an understanding about Aboriginal soldiers,” he said

“They honour them all, black and white, as one - but there still could be more education.”