The Nameless Names by Scott Bennett

Author:Scott Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027090, BIO008000, HIS004000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2018-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Justice to the Missing

His unknown grave is the bitterest blow;

That none but our sobbing hearts can know.

— In memoriam notice1

The armistice in Europe offered hope to families that their missing sons on the Western Front would be recovered and reverently reburied. Authorities reassured them that ‘all pains’ would be taken to greatly reduce the missing.2 Families put considerable faith in this commitment. Mary Jane Pflaum expected that the Australian government would spare no expense in resolving Ray’s disappearance. Sarah Allen had no reason to doubt that authorities would recover her sons’ remains. Yet would Australians recede into the cares and pleasure of living in 1919 and beyond, and forget about the war? And if the war receded from their memory, would the Australian government still fulfil its pledge to families of the missing?3

Over 600,000 British Empire troops died on the Western Front across thousands of square miles spanning Belgium and France. The empire faced a monumental task of cleansing its battlefields. The Imperial War Graves Commission believed that it was impractical for an estimated 150,000 graves scattered across Belgium and France to remain undisturbed in fields that returning farmers would soon re-cultivate.4 Although some relatives and politicians favoured leaving the bodies where they fell, the commission resolved in November 1918 to identify all isolated graves, exhume remains, and then rebury them into larger cemeteries, where they would receive reverent care. The British army formed exhumation parties composed of soldiers who volunteered to delay their demobilisation to complete the task.

Australia faced a complex task of identifying and burying its dead. Of the 40,000 Australian soldiers killed in Europe, the graves of 21,000 were registered, 11,000 were reported but inadequately registered, while the remainder had no known grave.

The 21,000 registered graves, such as Theo Pflaum’s, were concentrated behind the front line in central cemeteries near casualty clearing stations and military hospitals.

The 11,000 reported but inadequately registered graves, such as Ernest’s, Josiah’s, and Ned Allen’s, were concentrated on the battlefields. Remains were buried in crude graves — a shell hole, a broken trench, a shallow ditch, or on the corner of some farmyard or orchard. Perhaps a makeshift cross or a mound of dirt marked the location. The soldier’s identity discs had often been recovered and handed in at battalion headquarters.

No reliable burial records existed for the remaining 8,000 missing soldiers such as Ray Pflaum. Most had been ‘blown to pieces’ with their remains scattered across no man’s land or hurriedly shovelled into a ditch or trench. These soldiers’ identity discs were rarely recovered.5

The Imperial War Graves Commission divided the battlefield up and allocated the Villers-Bretonneux sector to the Australian Corps for cleansing.6 Their decision meant that Australian soldiers would become the guardians of the Australian dead.7 The Australian Corps decided to form a battalion of 1,100 volunteer soldiers — predominately late reinforcements — to find, identify, exhume, and rebury bodies. The British and Canadians deployed around 15,000 soldiers across the other sectors of France and Belgium.8

In March 1919, the Australian Corps

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