France’s urban expansion to uncover remains of ‘lost’ Aussie Diggers

Urban expansion in France is likely to uncover the remains of Aussie Diggers from both world wars. But the Australian Army has been warned the identification process won’t be easy.

The Australian Army has been warned urban expansion of cities and towns in France was likely to unearth Aussie Diggers ‘lost’ on the battlefields of both world wars but it would take a whopping 4300 years to identify them all.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has told Allied stakeholders and others that on average now the remains of 40 soldiers lost in the fields of France and Belgium and notably on the Western Front were being unearthed each year, up from an average half that a few years ago.

An archaeological team conduct work at the excavation site at Fromelles in May 2014. Picture: Supplied

“This is a record number,” a CWGC spokeswoman told News Corp Australia yesterday as she warned the numbers were only more likely to increase.

“The figure is a Commonwealth statistic so yes would include Australian casualties.”

They have largely been from the First World War and included Australian Diggers but now also in increasing numbers soldiers from all sides who fought during the Second World War.

Rehearsals for the reinterment of remains found at Pheasant Wood near the village of Fromelles. Picture: Jayne Russell

“CWGC Recovery Officers are the first port of call when remains are found, we then compile a report of the recovery which is sent to member governments. For Australia it’s a unit of the Australian Army called “Unrecovered War Casualties-Army (UWCA) who conduct an investigation into identity based on a list of suggestions made by the CWGC.

“The numbers of discoveries has increased as towns and cities expand into what were battlefields, and currently averages at 40 such cases a year, each case might be for an individual or multiple discovery of remains. Despite being busier than ever, even at the current rate it would take CWGC’s exhumation officers more than 4,300 years to find all of the missing — a chilling reminder of the scale of losses.”

Archaeologists from Britain and Australia conduct an authorised dig at Bullecourt in France in June 2017 and unearth remains of the Great War including two German soldiers. Picture: Harvey Mills

A mass grave of 250 Australian and British soldiers was found in Pheasant Wood outside the village of Fromelles in northern France in 2008 with 166 so far positively identified using DNA from ancestors.

Archaeologists from Britain and Australia conduct an authorised dig at Bullecourt in France in June 2017 and unearth remains of the Great War including two German soldiers. Pictures: Harvey Mills

A new CWGC visitor centre in Arras in France will be opened today by HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, to highlight the Commonwealth’s mammoth task in recovering and identifying the remains of those killed.

Originally published as France’s urban expansion to uncover remains of ‘lost’ Aussie Diggers