by Ian McPhedran. The article was based on the experiences of his friend and fellow author, Paul Daley, and well known photographer Mike Bowers’ experiences while on a research trip to the Western front for their new book.
Their French guide Dominique Zanardi discovered a Digger in an excavation trench:
“Now, on Saturday, we find ourselves standing in the bitter wind, the mud sucking at our boots, beside a one-meter newly excavated drainage ditch outside Mouquet Farm near Pozieres - the scene of a bitter three-week battle in August 1916 that claimed 11,000 Australian casualties - as Mr Zanardi gingerly passes us bones that we, in turn, place in a hessian sack.
He uncovers the soldier’s boots, still holding the bones of his feet, and places them on the side of the ditch. As we carefully carry the rest of the man’s remains from the ditch to the bag containing his skull and his jawbone, his arms and his legs, one thought dominates: dignity and glory do not belong to the battlefield.
As with the many thousands of others who lost their lives in the terrible fighting on the Somme during World War I, the battlefield has claimed this soldier’s identity. And were it not for Mr. Zanardi he would probably have stayed anonymously beneath the sticky mud of the Somme for an eternity.” Paul Daley The Age January 2011
This story really moved me, Paul and Mike tried to notify the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but, being a weekend the Commission was closed. The Mayor of Pozieres, Bernard Delattre, was planning to remove the body from the site on the day to prevent it from being reinterred by the bulldozer. He called the Australian Embassy in Paris to inform them an Australian Digger had been uncovered but had no response.
I decided to try to do something about this situation and subsequently formed Let Them RIP: I created a web site www.letthemrip.com to make the public aware something very wrong was happening to our ‘missing’ soldiers. I also wrote many emails to a number of politicians, including the Prime Minister, to try to implement procedures that would minimize our soldiers and the soldiers from the belligerents in the Great War being simply covered over when unearthed by ploughing and excavation work.
I have over four hundred emails in my sent file and have not received any real support from the Australian Government or the New Zealand Government. Only one independent MP, Andrew Wilkie, has demonstrated support by addressing a question to the Prime Minister in Federal Parliament. The question was asked, the answer was given and now they think the issue is buried, never to be raised again.
After six months of trying to get some action I decided to write this book with the encouragement from Ian McPhedran and Paul Daley, two very successful authors.
The fact is 300,000 are still missing on the Western Front and 18,000 are Australian.
If you bring the casualty rates of the war into today’s terms, the world’s population is currently over 7 Billion, the population in 1918 was 1.8 Billion.
Can you imagine 160 million slaughtered over four years in our world today?
Missing 1.5 million in 2012 terms.
That’s why I wrote this book.
I hope you enjoy the experience.
War
“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders”
Winston Churchill
Chapter 1
Oxford Dictionary Definition
war/wôr/
Noun:
A state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.
Verb:
Engage in a war.
Synonyms:
noun. warfare - battle - fight - struggle - combat - strife
verb. fight - combat - battle - make war
The Australian Digger lying in a pool of vile sludge in the middle of what was once a beautiful meadow was listening to the sound of shellfire and machine guns pouring out their deadly poison at an incredible speed; it was deafening.
Harry had no real understanding of the theory of war. All he knew was that war was horrible, destructive and took most of his mates, to where he did not know. He didn’t really believe in God anymore. If there was a God how could he let this Armageddon happen? How could he allow women and children to be killed and be mutilated by the foul weapons of war not to mention the hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed fighting for their country?
Yet, he sort of hoped there was a God. If there was, it might give him some hope that if he died in this war, he may go to a better place a place, where there was no carnage. He heard the command yelled from his platoon leader to go forward. Go forward to what? Another stretch of foul smelling mud with the corpses of soldiers or parts of soldiers spread over the place they call no-man’s land? To fight for every inch of ground against the enemy and the bloated rats that fed off the fruits of battle?
He didn’t have much of a choice: if he was ordered to go forward, he must go forward. He looked at his cobber alongside of him.
‘Come on, Paddy, let’s see if we can get to Passchendaele or what’s bloody left of it!’ They started to crawl through the slime, which was easier than walking, as their boots got stuck in the mud and the foul smelling whale oil they were forced to rub over their feet to try and minimise trench feet made their boots uncomfortable. They made little progress but they did inch forward a little way, when they heard the scream ‘GAS’!
All the remaining attacking troops scrambled to put on their gas masks, which made visibility even worse.
‘This is all we fucking need’ Harry.
‘Strange mate I don’t see or smell any gas. What the hell is going on?’ What was ‘going on’ was the Germans had used mustard gas for the first time. They used shells to deliver it and it was odourless.
‘This isn’t the usual stuff the Huns use. This is something else!’ yelled Harry They continued their treacherous journey across no-man’s land but the officers in charge knew it was pointless and gave the order to retreat back to their own line. Harry and Paddy made it back to the trench having passed countless mates in various states of dismemberment.
The tried to get some sleep after eating their meagre rations of beef jerky, biscuits, jam and a little tea. In the middle of the night Harry was woken by the cries of Paddy.
‘What’s the matter cobber?’
‘I’m burning, my eyes, my face, even my balls. You’ve got to help me mate!’
‘OK, Paddy, I‘ll go and fetch a medic! You’ll be OK mate don’t you worry!’ Harry raced as fast as he could along the partially flooded trench, dodging Diggers trying to sleep in the pouring rain as well as rats and overflowing bogs and other obstructions. When he reached the dressing station he was horrified to find there were Diggers everywhere moaning and screaming when the medics tried to apply bandages. He had seen plenty of the wounded here with some atrocious injuries but he had not seen anything like this.
These blokes had been burned down to the flesh, a yellow festering mess. Harry caught the attention of one of the medics, asking him if he could come and see Paddy. The Medic just looked at him in disbelief
‘Take a look around you soldier. There’s no way in the world I can leave the Dressing Station. If you want your cobber to be seen to, you’ll have to get him here.’ Harry raced back to his mate and lifted him up over his shoulder. Paddy screamed in pain.
‘Put