Commemoration
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| Flanders Poppy |
Planning is underway and the following are key points for the event:
- High-level representation from Australia, France and the United Kingdom,
- Event geared for television broadcast for those unable to attend,
- Joint bearer parties from the Australian and British Armies,
- Cemetery commemoration, and
- Reinterment of one unidentified soldier.
This will be a significant event and it is expected that public attendance at the commemoration will be considerable.
Following the commemoration, there will be a more private ceremony for families of identified soldiers to dedicate the named headstones within the cemetery. Information on this event will be provided directly to family members that have registered with Army
once soldiers are identified in March 2010.
Principles of Official Commemoration
Australia's war dead from the Great War 1914-1918 are commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). The casualties recovered from the mass burial site at Pheasant Wood will be permanently commemorated by the CWGC in the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.
Since its inception in 1917, the CWGC has followed the principles of equality and uniformity in the official commemoration of war dead. In practical terms the principles mean:
- each of the war dead is commemorated individually by name, on either a grave headstone (or headstone plaque), or an inscription on a Memorial to the Missing;
- headstones and memorials are maintained in perpetuity;
- inscriptions on headstones and memorials are uniform in content; and
- there is no distinction in style of commemoration made on the basis of military rank, civil rank or wealth of the veteran or his family.
The CWGC cemeteries and Memorials to the Missing in 150 countries around the world are the tangible expression of these principles.
The Australian casualties buried at Pheasant Wood will have been listed by the CWGC as having no known grave, and accordingly they are currently commemorated by name on the Memorials to the Missing at VC Corner Australian Cemetery or the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
When casualties recovered from Pheasant Wood are identified, a headstone, inscribed with the following information will be provided:
- service badge (In the case of Australians, this will be the Rising Sun AIF Badge);
- name (initials and surname);
- rank;
- unit;
- date of death;
- age (optional);
- religious emblem (optional); and
- a personal inscription chosen by relatives (optional).
In due course, the name of each identified casualty will be removed from the Memorial to the Missing where it is now found as the casualty will finally have a known grave.