BELGIUM: Five young Australians laid to rest with full military honours 90 years after their deaths in World War I

Record ID: 555424

  • Title: BELGIUM: Five young Australians laid to rest with full military honours 90 years after their deaths in World War I
  • Date: 5th October 2007
  • Summary: (BN15) TYNE COT, NEAR PASSCHENDAELE, BELGIUM (OCTOBER 4, 2007) (REUTERS) GRAVES AT TYNE COT CEMETERY GRAVESTONE FOR UNKNOWN SOLDIER STONE WITH WREATHS AT CEREMONY FOR NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS LOST IN PASSCHENDAELE DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR GOVERNOR GENERAL OF AUSTRALIA MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL JEFFERY AND NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER HELEN CLARK LAYING WREATHS JEFFERY AND CLARK WALK BACK FROM THE WREATH LAYING AUSTRALIAN FLAG WREATHS IN FRONT OF MEMORIAL / WREATHS BEING LAID INSCRIPTION ON GRAVE STONE: A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR / 33RD AUSTRALIA VETERAN WITH FLAGS (SOUNDBITE) (English) NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER HELEN CLARK SAYING: "Overall then, Passchendaele has become a byword for disaster. Our soldiers were bombarded by their own guns on the start line, the planned artillery barrage failed to provide the necessary support, uncut wire barred the way forward and enemy machine gunners cut a swathe through our divisions' ranks. But Passchendaele is also a byword for courage and adversity. It speaks of people bravely doing their duty as their comrades around them were being cut down."
  • Embargoed: 20th October 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: War / Fighting,History
  • Reuters ID: LVA24GO2HPHJQV2BKUCDPAUXALVO
  • Story Text: The special ceremony began on Thursday (October 4) at Tyne Cot, a memorial for the missing, where almost 12,000 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War are buried or commemorated after dying in the third battle of Ypres - the battle of Passchendaele.
    It contains the largest number of burials of any Commonwealth cemetery of either world wars.
    Australia's Governor General Major General Michael Jeffery joined New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark in remembering the dead on a memorial stone opposite a German concrete pill box which stands in the middle of the cemetery.
    In a speech, Clark reminded us of the horrors of war but particularly of the decimation that took place during the Passchendaele battle.
    "Overall then, Passchendaele has become a byword for disaster.
    Our soldiers were bombarded by their own guns on the start line, the planned artillery barrage failed to provide the necessary support, uncut wire barred the way forward and enemy machine gunners cut a swathe through our divisions' ranks. But Passhendaele is also a byword for courage and adversity. It speaks of people bravely doing their duty as their comrades around them were being cut down," she said.
    But on Thursday, two of those previously unknown soldiers, whose name were listed on a memorial wall, were buried on marked graves, next to three other of their comrades who are still unidentified.
    Relatives buried Sergeant George Calder and Private John Hunter at Buttes Wood New British Cemetery, on the site of the battle in which they fell - 90 years after they fell - following DNA tests.
    The remains of the soldiers killed in 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele were found in the Belgian hamlet of Westhoeke in September last year by workers excavating a new gas main.
    Thanks to intervention by the Belgian War Graves Department, two were identified after Belgium's National Institute for Criminology matched DNA samples from the skeletons with those of relatives in Australia.
    Private John Hunter was born in Jimboomba, Queensland. A labourer, he enlisted in October 1916 aged 27, and arrived on the Western Front in mid-August 1917, only to be killed in an attack the following Sept. 26.
    Sergeant George Calder, a miner born in Goldsborough, Victoria, who enlisted in January 1916 aged 22, was killed four days later.
    "There are still thousands of Australian dead in this Ypres Salient in unknown graves who are listed on the walls of that wonderful memorial Menin Gate. For the past 90 years, the five young men before us were numbered among them. When found last year they were all wearing Australian insignia but could not be identified by traditional means. The revolutionary use of DNA testing and some remarkable historical detective work in Belgium and Australia have helped end 90 years of uncertainty for two Australian families," said Major General Michael Jeffery.
    The five were among more than 7,000 Australians who died in the Third Battle of Ypres.
    Belgian experts say the identification through a combination of DNA tests and historical research was the first time this had been achieved for Commonwealth soldiers without physical identifiers, such as dog tags, pay books or personal effects.
    They said it could have important implications for identifying the 50 to 60 sets of soldiers' remains still discovered every year in Flanders.
    More than 500,000 allied and German soldiers were killed or wounded in the battle, which lasted from July to November 1917.
    In the Flanders region, 200,000 fallen soldiers from both sides remain unidentified, 100,000 with no known grave.
    Among those attending the ceremony were a niece and nephew of Hunter and two great-great-nieces of Calder.
    "A lot of them were blown to pieces. My father wanted to go over to look for him, my grandfather, but my father told him the place would be so torn up they'd never find where they buried him. But apparently there were five or six of them buried together. Sergeant Calder, I thought he was killed on the same day, the same battle," said Jim Hunter.
    Calder's great great niece Sue Moore said she had a son the same age as he had been when he died.
    "I have a son around the same age and, the battle, in the mud and, that sort of thing. For me to think that my son could possibly be in those conditions is just horrible to me to think of that so, the fact that I can take this 23 year old and give him a proper funeral is terrific, for the family," she said.
    Identifying the soldiers was helped by the survival of uniforms, boots and insignia, which showed them to be members of Australia's fourth division.
    Passchendaele museum curator Franky Bostyn said he would like to see DNA tests carried out on all remains discovered and kept in a database.
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