The bodies of 250 British and Australian soldiers have been recovered from a World War I mass grave in France, the Ministry of Defence said Thursday at the end of a four-month excavation. The unidentified troops killed in the 1916 Battle of Fromelles, near the city of Lille in north-eastern France, will now be reburied with full military honours in a new cemetery close to the site.
DNA samples have been taken from the remains and potential relatives are being sought to help identify the fallen troops. British veterans minister Kevan Jones said the remains had been recovered with the utmost care and respect. "Now we will do everything we can to try to identify each and every one of these fallen soldiers," he said.
"What is most important is that these men are laid to rest with full military honours and the dignity they deserve." His Australian counterpart Greg Combet said: "A total of 250 sets of remains and 1,200 artefacts have been excavated from six graves. "While identification of the remains is an extremely complex process I remain hopeful that we will be able to identify a number of those that we have found."
The remains were found during excavation work in May 2008. It is believed that 250 to 300 Australian and British soldiers were buried there by German forces after the Battle of Fromelles.
The July 19, 1916 clash was the first major battle on the Western Front to involve both British and Australian troops. In all some 1,547 British troops and 5,533 Australians were either killed, wounded, taken prisoner or reported missing. The date stands out as Australia's bloodiest day in military history. Oxford Archaeology, which carried out the excavation, will wind up its work on Monday. The remains will stay in their on-site laboratories while experts log all the details to help with the identification process, expected to take many months.
"Each grave will be marked by a headstone following the formal identification process," the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. "If the soldiers can be identified by name their relatives will be able to add a personalised inscription on the headstone at a later date." A list of those servicemen who may be among the dead is on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. The MoD is encouraging anyone who thinks they may be related to one of the soldiers to come forward. The public reburials will take place every other day throughout February 2010. Costs are being shared by the British and Australian governments.