Samantha Donovan: And we heard in some of Isabelle’s reports some of the service from the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in northern France. It honours the 10,719 Australian soldiers who died in France in the First World War and have no known grave. The Australian Army continues to search for their remains and just recently four diggers were found. It’s believed they died in the Second Battle of Bullecourt nearly 108 years ago in May 1917. 3,700 Australians died fighting the German forces in two battles there and those deaths came in just two months that year, April and May. Historian Dr Aaron Pegram is the manager of the Army’s unrecovered war casualties unit and I asked him to first explain the job the Australians had at Bullecourt.
Dr Aaron Pegram: They managed to fight their way into the German defences without actually any support at all and during the Second Battle of Bullecourt which is happening in May 1917, they actually fought their way into the German trenches and held them against a whole determined series of German counter-attacks that tried to eject them at every opportunity. The great sort of tragedy about Boullacourt is once, you know, Australians have expended 10,000 casualties sort of getting a toehold into the German trenches trying to achieve this breakthrough. The whole series of operations is cancelled because the British switched their focus north to Belgium where conditions are right to start a series of operations that then become known as the Third Battle of Ypres. So this is the First World War, a textbook First World War engagement where even though there are some very minor successes it ultimately does come at the cost of vast amounts of casualties.
Samantha Donovan: So the four Australian soldiers who have just been found, how do you think they died?
Dr Aaron Pegram: These men were killed by a German artillery fire which was hammering away at an Australian position along a railway embankment which is one of the very few forms of protection in part of the Australian positions in the Bullecourt sector in 1917. And these men received a hasty battlefield burial very near that railway embankment and that’s precisely where we found them when we conducted our activity.
Samantha Donovan: And how do you go about now identifying them?
Dr Aaron Pegram: This is a rigorous process where we look at a list of candidates, we take a close examination of the artefacts that were found with the men when we recovered them and we will do a whole series of really deep historical research to try and narrow down what units were using that location at what time. And then also too our forensic specialists will look at the skeletons themselves to look at to try and estimate age, trying to estimate their height and potential weight which we can then look at historical records, the individual service record that every Australian soldier completed and was filled out on his behalf when he saw service in the Australian Imperial Force. But of course the gold standard is DNA where hopefully we can get family reference samples from potential donors and potential sort of family members whose DNA will help unlock the key to try and identify who these men truly are.
Samantha Donovan: Do many families still come forward asking you to find their loved one and perhaps offering up a DNA sample?
Dr Aaron Pegram: They do indeed and certainly people who have descendants, who are descendants of Australian soldiers who are missing in action from the First World War and the Second World War are more than welcome to get online and visit the Unrecovered War Casualties website where you can fill out information that relates to your missing relative and if that matches along with an investigation that we have got ongoing or potentially may have in the future, we can reach out to discuss the potential of sourcing DNA.
Samantha Donovan: And Dr. Pegram, did these four soldiers have any artefacts, any belongings on them that you can tell us about?
Dr Aaron Pegram: They were recovered wearing Australian regimental shoulder titles on their uniforms and of course the iconic Rising Sun collar badge on their uniforms which of course made, which were distinctive Australian items of kit and equipment that were on their uniform which of course made them distinctly Australian from their British counterparts.
Samantha Donovan: In the First World War or after the First World War, Australian soldiers were buried where they fell. Will these soldiers now be buried in one of the Commonwealth cemeteries in France?
Dr Aaron Pegram: Yeah, that’s the idea is that once we complete our investigation to try and identify who these men are, the view is that they will certainly be buried in a Commonwealth War graves commissioned cemetery nearby, near where they fell, ideally together. I mean, they’ve been buried together for more than a century now. It seems fitting that they remain buried together in the future. But Australian servicemen who died in the First and Second World Wars are buried overseas and it was not until after Korea and 1964, after the initial stages of the Vietnam War, that Australian servicemen who died on operations were brought back home to Australia.
Samantha Donovan: Dr. Pegram, I know you’ve done a lot of work in the field. What goes through your mind when you see the remains of an Australian soldier who’s been buried, say, on the Western Front for more than a century?
Dr Aaron Pegram: As a historian, I’m a historian and I lead a team of investigators who often have a policing background and forensic specialists who have similarly a policing and science background. When you are looking at sets of remains and conducting this research, you try and be as objective as possible. But I think there are moments where you are confronted with the human face of war. It is often said that despite war’s changing character, it remains an enduring human endeavour. And certainly when you’re looking at death like that, more than 100 years down the track, that is certainly something that remains particularly poignant and it stays with you for some time. But I don’t think there could be a greater honour than to help recover an Australian soldier who’s been missing in action for more than a century and working to try and reunite him with his identity.
Samantha Donovan: Dr. Aaron Pegram is the manager of the Australian Army’s Unrecovered War Casualties Unit.