Others would work
by night and struggle under the weight of their friends.
Sergeant Simon Fraser of the 57th Battalion remembered
the effort: “I could not lift him on my back; but I
managed to get him into an old trench and told him to
lie quiet while I got a stretcher. Then another man sang
out ‘Don’t forget me cobber’.”
The unknown
soldiers that fell during the Great War are emblematic
of its mass-slaughter and mass-grief, of loss uncounted
and death that can’t be imagined.
The industrial
scale of the killing, the machines and weapons that
swept away life, created limited time for recognition,
recovery or even burial. This resulted in the moments
that upon death we take for ourselves and our loved ones
being lost.
Today we remember
the unknown soldiers here at Fromelles, for their
service, we honour them for their sacrifice, and we
ensure that they continue to live in the memories of all
Australians.
Fromelles became
the place where Australia first realised the full force
and horror of industrialised warfare.
The Australian
official war historian Charles Bean recalled the scale
of this devastation here at Fromelles, “We found the old
no man’s land simply full of our dead … the skulls and
bones and torn uniforms were lying about everywhere …
the wounded could be seen everywhere raising their limbs
in pain or turning hopelessly, hour after hour, from one
side to the other”.
It was a field of
men stripped of names, features or identity by the
brutal destruction of artillery, guns and bayonets.
After the battles,
a chorus of nameless voices crying in pain or agony
could be heard by the survivors. It was the nature of
the scale of this death that those still safe did not
know whether the cries came from dying friends or from
soldiers they had never met.
In the days after
the battle, soldiers would attempt to go out into no
man’s land to retrieve their fallen mates. They often
became casualties themselves.
Private Edgar
Williams was shot and killed after retrieving eight men.
The grief and
uncertainty of families with no plots for their loved
ones was immense. Pieces of their lives could never be
fully recovered.
On returning from
war the soldiers of this battlefield saw this loss stare
back at them from the families of lost mates.
Captain Hugh
Knyvett recalled: “I discovered one day how deep the
knife of war had cut when I spoke to a grandmother and
daughter working a large farm; as with dumb,
uncomprehending pain in their eyes they showed me the
picture of son-in-law and husband who would never
return. Rights of peoples and the things for which
nations strive had no meaning to these two, but from out
of the dark had come a hand and dragged from them the
fullness of life, leaving only its empty shell.”
Over 16,900
Australians remain unknown or unaccounted for from the
Western Front campaign. Today we honour six men who have
now been named. The work to do so, is one we as a
country, owe these men, their families and their
descendants. It is our duty to honour their duty.
For those who are
still unknown, here in this cemetery we can remember
them as individuals, though we don’t know where they
lie.
They are unknown
but did not do their duty any less. They are unknown but
did not suffer any less. They are unknown but were not
loved any less. They are unknown but not remembered any
less.
Today, like 100
years ago, we claim these men as ours. As our sons, our
fathers, our brothers, our friends, our workmates. They
are ours.
We take this
moment to give them the peace and respect we reserve for
those we lose to death, not to say farewell but to
remind ourselves of the honour, respect and above all
else the love they were denied.
We also take this
moment to thank the French people and in particular the
village of Fromelles, for the ongoing respect they
continue to show our fallen.
In those immortal
words, ‘Don’t forget me cobber’.
Lest we forget.
