In an unfortunate irony, the disastrous First World War Battle of Fromelles, fought near the small picturesque French village of that name, is now much better known to Australians than almost any other battle fought on the Western Front during that war. Thanks to the intense public and media interest in the story of the search for and discovery of about 170 of the missing from the battle, Fromelles now appears much better known than such militarily critical and successful battles as Pozi?s, Mont St Quentin or even Polygon Wood. This is especially ironic for a nation that reputedly values success above all else, as Fromelles was a failure, and a particularly bloody failure.

Much has been written about the battle, some of it is reasonably good. The purpose of this brief article however, is to describe the treatment of the dead and hypothesise on how around 170 of our war dead could be 'misplaced'.

In 2003, a Victorian schoolteacher, Mr Lambis Englezos, approached Army with a theory. Having been drawn into the story of the battle of Fromelles, particularly the high number of dead buried as unknowns, by a visit to the battlefield site some years earlier, he had researched all he could find on the dead and the missing. His research led him to suspect that many of the missing were buried in eight pits on a site behind German lines, in a field just south of a wood known by the Germans as Pheasant Wood, about half a kilometre north east of the village of Fromelles.

Together with some dedicated colleagues and with the support of a wide range of military historians, Lambis asked Army to investigate the site.

Under the regulations that cover dealing with our war dead, speculative searching is expressly forbidden (and has been since the 1920s) unless there is compelling circumstantial evidence. Army formed an Expert Panel of eminent military historians to examine Lambis's evidence. The Panel met three times in all. The doubt about Lambis's case centred on two issues: had the site really been used as a burial site and if so, how had such a major burial site been missed in the post war battlefield clearance operation that saw more than 100,000 sets of remains recovered from scattered battlefield graves and re-interred in official war cemeteries? The evidence for the existence of the pits themselves was conclusive. British aerial reconnaissance photos of the area before and after the battle clearly show the area without pits just prior to the battle, with the pits just after the battle and with three of the pits still open at the end of the war.

The first time the Panel met the evidence was seen as strong but not sufficient to warrant an investigation. Undeterred, Lambis went away and dug up more information. The Panel had also tasked Army with seeking further information from German Archives. The evidence presented to the second meeting was sufficient to prompt the Committee to recommend Army undertake a non-invasive examination of the site, using advanced scientific methods such as ground penetrating radar. The survey, undertaken by an experienced team of battlefield archaeologists from the Glasgow University's Archaeology Research Department (GUARD), proved decisive in the process. Its findings demonstrated that the area had indeed been used as a burial site and, more importantly, suggested it had not been disturbed since the burial pits had been first filled in.

On the basis of this initial report, Army decided that sufficient evidence existed to justify a physical examination, including an excavation of the pits themselves. In view of GUARD's proven expertise from the initial survey and their proven experience working with the French Archaeological authorities on such investigations, Army asked GUARD to undertake the next stage to prove conclusively, one way or another, whether remains were in fact present at the Pheasant Wood site.

Planning originally was for the investigation to begin on 1 April 2008, but the northern winter had other ideas and the ground was still too sodden to enable machinery and people to access the site. Work was delayed until 23 May to enable the ground to dry out. GUARD assembled an impressive team to undertake the excavation, including experienced and highly credentialed forensic anthropologists, archaeological survey experts, battlefield archaeologists, a soil scientist and an osteologist. Their task was disarmingly simple: to determine whether remains were present, to advise on the likely total number of remains present on the site and to advise, if possible, on the possibility of extracting DNA to aid in any scientifically based identification process ...

See the next instalment for a description of the excavation.