PASSCHENDAELE REFLECTIONS
Preparing the graves
Even in digging the graves for the five Australian soldiers who will be laid to rest at Buttes New British Cemetery in Polygon Wood, the reminders of war are not far from the surface.
Workmen from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission turned up a German ammunition pouch and some cartridges when they excavated the ground.
Steve Arnold, a horticultural supervisor with the commission, said the area where the graves were dug had not been touched since the cemetery was finished after World War I.
However, the discovery of the detritus of the Great War has not been the major concern for Mr Arnold and his team of 16 since they began digging the graves on 28 September.
“What we had was a very thin layer of topsoil and underneath that was just stone. It wasn’t plain digging – we’d get cave-ins, so we had to shore up the graves properly. Then there is the water. We’re pumping water out daily and we’ll have to pump it out on the day, too. You pump it out and an hour later it’s back again,” Mr Arnold said.
This is the third ceremony he has been involved in this year to inter the remains of Allied soldiers who died in WWI.
“It’s been more frequent in the past four or five years because now the town in Ieper and the industrial zone are expanding into some old battlefields and more bodies are being found,” he said.
He had noticed in the past 20 years that the respect for “these soldiers and what they did” had grown.
“We have to commemorate these men; there is one thing left that we can do for them, and it’s this,” he said.
“This sort of ceremony brings home all the reasons why we do something like this and why people like me and the chaps here who work for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are proud of what we do. The highlights are something like this – how can it be anything else?”