Fromelles – Naming the Dead

Fromelles – Naming the Dead
Author: Margaret Cox
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2022-07-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1922765279

This is the extraordinary story of the engagement between 250 young Australians, who enlisted in 1915 and died in the Battle of Fromelles of 1916, their families, and three British scientists. In 2009, the bodies of these 250 soldiers were excavated by Oxford Archaeology. Among them were the Wilson brothers who, with their comrades were subsequently reburied in individual marked graves in the new cemetery in Fromelles village. The Battle of Fromelles needs no introduction, nor do the losses sustained. Here we focus on 166 of the 250 soldiers who were excavated from six mass graves adjacent to Pheasant Wood in 2009 and who have since been identified. Each has his own story to tell as does his family. We explore aspects of these lost lives while telling the story of their recovery and identification. This is the story of how these lost soldiers were excavated and identified. It is told by the scientists who led the excavation, the anthropological and DNA analyses, and the identification process. It is their story of involvement with and commitment to this fascinating project, in which many combined decades of professional experience were pooled to help achieve a fitting final resting place, names restored, for these brave men, and belated solace for their families. Much has been written about the Battle of Fromelles, the missing soldiers, their families’ quests to restore their identities and the discovery and excavation of the graves. This book tells a new story. it is the scientist’s story behind naming the Fromelles’ dead.

Britons and their Battlefields

Britons and their Battlefields
Author: Ian Atherton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2024-08-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198912870

While much attention has been paid to the commemoration of conflict in the twentieth century, this book is the first to consider conflict memory in the long term, arguing that modern practices were not created out of the mud of the trenches, but evolved from much longer practices. From the fourteenth century to the present day, this work analyses the changing commemoration and memories of British battlefields at home and overseas, from Bannockburn (1314) to Bosworth (1485) to Basra (1914-1921). Across these seven centuries, there have been a series of recurring post-battle rituals that have shaped and continue to shape memories of conflict. Three distinct but overlapping periods of memory can be delineated: In the later Middle Ages battlefields were consecrated by the burial of the fallen and often by the erection of a battlefield cross, or chapel or chantry to pray for the dead. The second phase began with the Protestant Reformation in the 1530s, when pilgrimage and prayers for the dead was abolished, and battlefield chantries were dissolved and many battlefield crosses were demolished. Memories shifted from the dead to the living, especially the bodies of surviving veterans who commemorated the conflict by their wounds, and from soil and stone to print and ink. The third phase began in the eighteenth century when antiquaries and others established new monuments on past battlefields. Monuments to survivors and the dead were established on contemporary battlefields such as Waterloo, once again hailed as sacred ground hallowed by bloodshed, fit destinations for a pilgrimage. Not just officers but ordinary soldiers began to be memorialized by name on the battlefield, culminating in the cult of the names of the dead enshrined by the creation of the War Graves Commission in 1917, and the idea that battlefields should be preserved unchanged as seen in modern heritage management. Drawing on a wide variety of literary and historical sources and taking a uniquely longue durée approach, the book explores and links memory-making practices from across the period to reconsider the ways in which battlefields are commemorated and re-commemorated. In so doing, it makes a unique contribution to a wide range of historiographical fields: British history since the fourteenth century, memory studies, heritage studies, landscape history, conflict archaeology, and military history.

Fromelles - Naming the Dead

Fromelles - Naming the Dead
Author: Professor Margaret Cox Loe
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-11-15
Genre: Australia
ISBN: 9781038720733

This is the extraordinary story of the engagement between 250 young Australians, who enlisted in 1915 and died in the Battle of Fromelles of 1916, their families, and three British scientists. In 2009, the bodies of these 250 soldiers were excavated by Oxford Archaeology. Among them were the Wilson brothers who, with their comrades were subsequently reburied in individual marked graves in the new cemetery in Fromelles village. The Battle of Fromelles needs no introduction, nor do the losses sustained. Here we focus on 166 of the 250 soldiers who were excavated from six mass graves adjacent to Pheasant Wood in 2009 and who have since been identified. Each has his own story to tell as does his family. We explore aspects of these lost lives while telling the story of their recovery and identification. This is the story of how these lost soldiers were excavated and identified. It is told by the scientists who led the excavation, the anthropological and DNA analyses, and the identification process. It is their story of involvement with and commitment to this fascinating project, in which many combined decades of professional experience were pooled to help achieve a fitting final resting place, names restored, for these brave men, and belated solace for their families. Much has been written about the Battle of Fromelles, the missing soldiers, their families' quests to restore their identities and the discovery and excavation of the graves. This book tells a new story. it is the scientist's story behind naming the Fromelles' dead.

Fromelles: The Final Chapters

Fromelles: The Final Chapters
Author: Tim Lycett
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-06-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1742536360

For Honour. For Courage. For Remembrance. The Battle of Fromelles in France during the First World War was Australia's worst 24 hours. Thousands of men were shot down amid the horror of that blundered attack. The whereabouts of hundreds of dead soldiers was unknown for almost a century until the discovery in 2008 of unmarked mass graves at Pheasant Wood. The remains of these 250 men sparked a mission to reclaim their identities. Tim Lycett and Sandra Playle became key players in the identification project, volunteering their time and working alongside other amateur advocates and international experts. Tim tells how they pieced together fragments of information from relics, military records and family histories using genealogy data and DNA analysis. They fought to have authorities reopen investigations in their quest to find the untold stories of the diggers and reconnect them with their families. This is an inspiring, heart-rending account of war, its aftermath and its effect on the lives of the lost diggers' descendants.

Battlefield Events

Battlefield Events
Author: Keir Reeves
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2015-10-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317478991

Battlefield Events: Landscape, Commemoration and Heritage is an investigative and analytical study into the way in which significant landscapes of war have been constructed and imagined through events over time to articulate specific narratives and denote consequence and identity. The book charts the ways in which a number of landscapes of war have been created and managed from an events perspective, and how the processes of remembering (along with silencing and forgetting) at these places has influenced the management of these warscapes in the present day. With chapters from authors based in seven different countries on three continents and comparative case studies, this book has a truly international perspective. This timely longitudinal analysis of war commemoration events, the associated landscapes, travel to these destinations and management strategies will be valuable reading for all those interested in war landscapes and events.

'Remember Me to All'

'Remember Me to All'
Author: Louise Loe
Publisher: Oxford Archaeological Unit
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN:

Summaries in English, French and German.

Their Names Shall Live Forever More

Their Names Shall Live Forever More
Author: Trevor Jardine
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2023-07-25
Genre: History
ISBN:

This book is a thorough and thought provoking account of the first year of existence of the 60th Australian Infantry Battalion. Interspersed with Divisional, Brigade and other Battalion’s perspectives are the personal views of officers and other ranks relating to events and places. Included in the story is an investigation into a previously untold account of a group of soldiers called the “Needle Trench 10” who were killed by a single artillery shell on the 26th November 1916. For more than 100 years the identity of one of these soldiers, buried in the Guards’ Cemetery at Lesboeufs, France, has been lost to time. A document, filed in the archives of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maidenhead, England, for over 100 years and only coming to light in 2021, has finally enabled this soldier’s possible identity to be established. Also revealed in the same document is the initial burial location of another soldier, wounded by the same artillery shell, and dying later that day whilst on his way to receive medical treatment. Woven throughout the book are the human stories of the battalion’s soldiers, including biographies of those killed on the 26th November, with many of the details provided by the descendants of these soldiers. The investigation details how a simple “bookkeeping” entry resulted in families, and descendants of ten of the eleven soldiers who died on the 26th November, being provided incorrect details concerning their deaths. This error has been perpetuated in official documents, publications, online resources, and inscribed in stone since this time.

Set in Stone?

Set in Stone?
Author: Emma Login
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2016-02-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784912581

This book provides a holistic and longitudinal study of war memorialisation in the UK, France and the USA from 1860 to 2014.

The Work of the Dead

The Work of the Dead
Author: Thomas W. Laqueur
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 745
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400874513

The meaning of our concern for mortal remains—from antiquity through the twentieth century The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters—for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century. The book draws on a vast range of sources—from mortuary archaeology, medical tracts, letters, songs, poems, and novels to painting and landscapes in order to recover the work that the dead do for the living: making human communities that connect the past and the future. Laqueur shows how the churchyard became the dominant resting place of the dead during the Middle Ages and why the cemetery largely supplanted it during the modern period. He traces how and why since the nineteenth century we have come to gather the names of the dead on great lists and memorials and why being buried without a name has become so disturbing. And finally, he tells how modern cremation, begun as a fantasy of stripping death of its history, ultimately failed—and how even the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust have been preserved in culture. A fascinating chronicle of how we shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them, this is a landmark work of cultural history.

Surviving the Great War

Surviving the Great War
Author: Aaron Pegram
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108486193

Surviving the Great War is the first detailed analysis of Australians in German captivity in WW1. By placing the hardships of prisoners of war in a broader social and military content, this book adds a new dimension to the national wartime experience and challenges popular representations of Australia's involvement in the First World War.