Headstone dedication ceremony at Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Ceremony
05 July 2012
The replacement headstones for nine recently identified
Australian soldiers were dedicated at Fromelles
(Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery on 20 July - the 96th
anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles.
The Australian Army and the Mayor of Fromelles co-hosted the
ceremony, which began at 7pm.
The Fromelles Project is a joint Australian Army and UK Ministry
of Defence project to identify the remaining unidentified
Australian and British soldiers buried in the Fromelles (Pheasant
Wood) Military Cemetery in France.
The bodies of 250 Australian and British soldiers were buried in
the cemetery after being recovered from burial pits adjacent to
nearby Pheasant Wood in 2010.
The bodies were buried by German forces after the disastrous
Battle of Fromelles fought on 19/20 July 1916.
The project's 2012 Joint Identification Board (JIB) recently
convened in London and confirmed the identification of another nine
Australian soldiers buried at the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood)
Military Cemetery.
Identified by name, they are:
3013 Private
Leonard Broadhurst 55th Battalion
4779 Private
Robert Carrington Forland 53rd Battalion
3046 Private John
Robertson Forrest 54th Battalion
555 Private John
Joseph Goulding 31st Battalion
2144 Private
William Alexander Jamieson 31st Battalion
2203 Private Arthur
Joseph Johnson 29th Battalion
1252 Corporal Alfred
George Tuck 29th Battalion
2154 Private Claude
Ward 30th Battalion
2485 Private John Cyril
Wynn 30th Battalion
More details can be found on the Australian Army's website.