Military History Tours Australia Fromelles New Cemetery Dedication Tour - July 2010
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The disastrous attack at Fromelles on the night of 19 July 1916, the first engagement undertaken by the Australian 5th Division on the Western Front, also proved to be the most costly. By the time the action was called off the next morning, the Australians had lost 5,533 men killed, wounded and missing. Casualties for the British 61st Division, who attacked alongside the Australians, numbered 1,547.
The bodies of more than 165,000 Commonwealth soldiers killed on the Western Front during the First World War are still missing. In the years since the war ended, a steady stream of remains have been found as agricultural land is ploughed or cleared for development but never before has there been a discovery on the scale of Fromelles.
The Commission’s records suggest that between 19 and 21 July 1916 the Australian dead at Fromelles amounted to 1,780, the British 503. Many of those killed in the engagement could not be accounted for at the time. Historians have long speculated that up to 400 of the missing dead were recovered by the Germans in the days following the attack and buried behind their lines. Painstaking research led to the possible identification of several mass burial pits on the edge of Pheasant Wood near Fromelles. In May 2008 the Australian Government asked the Commission to oversee a limited excavation to establish whether or not the pits contained remains. The three week dig found conclusive evidence that substantial numbers of Australian and British soldiers had been buried in five of the eight pits identified.
The burial pits at Pheasant Wood are estimated to contain between 225 and 400 bodies. Recovery of the remains, which have lain undisturbed for more than 90 years, will be a delicate operation and a team of archaeological specialists has been appointed to undertake the work which began in May 2009. All of the bodies date from a specific action, the Battle of Fromelles, which took place on the night of 19 July 1916. A careful cross-referencing of casualty records means that we have a pool of possible identities for the men buried in the pits. DNA samples will be taken during the course of the recovery which, if viable, may lead to some of the bodies being identified.
Meanwhile the Commission will begin work on its first new cemetery since the end of the Second World War not far from Pheasant Wood. The bodies recovered from the pits will be buried in individual graves in the cemetery between February and March 2010 and the cemetery will be completed in time for a commemorative event scheduled for the anniversary of the battle on 19 July 2010.
This will be the first new Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery since WW2. Military History Tours (Australia) will be present at this dedication of the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery and we are giving you the opportunity to join us as we attend the dedication of the new Military Cemetery at Fromelles and pay our respects to those missing soldiers who will now be more than a name on the wall of the Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
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Images courtesy the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Use the Button to your left to see a video of a Fromelles Battlefield briefing.
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Price: $2,499.00 per person twin share, $450.00 single supplement (subject to exclusions - see below).
17 July 2010 – PARIS to ARRAS:
Guests will gather at our Paris Hotel for an early departure for the Somme. On our way north to Arras we visit Peronne for the de la Grande Guerre Museum and lunch in this village. Following lunch we continue to Arras via Mont St Quentin, the 2nd Division Memorial and the village of Bullecourt on the Hindenburg Line, another place of prodigious Australian valour, effort and sacrifice. Dinner in our hotel. D.
18 July 2010 – THE SOMME:
After breakfast, with a boxed lunch for sustenance we leave for our tour of the Somme. Included in the days visits will be Pozieres, Thiepval, Dernacourt, Villers-Bretonneux, the new Australian Memorial at Le Hamel and the 3rd Division Memorial at Sailly le Sec. After our day of touring the Somme, we return to our hotel for dinner. B/L/D.
19 July 2010 - FROMELLES:
This will be a very special and moving day for all. This is the day when we will attend what will be a very moving service to dedicate the new Military Cemetery at Fromelles. There will be many Australians and British present at the dedication of this new cemetery and to pay our respects to those soldiers who have been missing since that fateful battle in 1916. We intend to visit all of the various sites in the area such as VC Corner, the Cobber Memorial and Le Trou Aid Post Cemetery, but will remain flexible to cater for any additional activities associated with the dedication that may arise. Following this most memorable and , we are sure, moving day, we will return to our hotel for dinner and maybe a reflection on the history of that place. B/L/D.
20 July 2010 – IEPER:
Today we visit the Ieper Salient Battlefields including Hill 60, Polygon Wood, (the 5 Division Memorial), Passchendale and Tyne Cot cemetery. There will also time in Ieper itself to enjoy this walled mediaeval town. Dinner will be in Ieper to allow us to attend the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate. Following that service we return to Arras for our last evening together in the Somme. B/L/D.
21 July 2010 – ARRAS TO PARIS:
An early start today as we head back to Paris. The tour will conclude in Paris and so as to accommodate further travels by those on tour, our coach will drop at the Mercure Gare du Lyon Hotel, Gare du Nord Station or Charles De Gaulle Airport. We will take with us a boxed lunch that should see us through until we arrive in Paris. B/L.
