PASSCHENDAELE REFLECTIONS
Soldiers lay Diggers to rest
THE mist parted and the sun shone brightly the moment soldiers from the 51st Battalion, The Far North Queensland Regiment, slow-marched one of their own and four Digger mates to newly dug graves on a former battlefield in Belgium today.
The 21-strong contingent ensured the five World War I soldiers, including one from the original 51st Battalion, received a funeral with full military honours.
Sergeant Steve Fauid said when he and the six bearers shouldered the first coffin he thought: “I will carry this weight because this is a great fellow.”
His colleague, Sergeant Rick Leeman, said it was fitting that the sun pierced the gloom as the first coffin was carried into the Buttes New British Cemetery.
“Every Aussie loves the sun – it couldn’t have felt better,” he said.
The five casualties of the Great War were buried in the presence of Australian Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, recent Kiwi Victoria Cross winner Corporal Bill Apiata, Vice Chief of the Australian Defence Force Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie, Chief of Army’s representative Major General Michael O’Brien (retd) and a crowd of more than a thousand.
The Governor-General’s wife, Marlena Jeffery, placed sprigs of wattle on the coffins, which were adorned with the Australian flag, slouch hat, .303 bayonet and WWI medals.
Chaplain Jim Pearson, of 51 FNQR, conducted the service. He and Sergeant Noel Chillego tipped sand and seawater from Albany, Western Australia – the embarkation point for WWI soldiers destined for the Western Front – on the coffins as they were lowered into the ground.
The Governor-General said that 90 years ago, almost to the day, the five soldiers died in a “savage but successful battle” to capture Polygon Wood, in which the Buttes cemetery is now located.
“It’s hard to imagine standing here in this beautiful, productive countryside that in 1917 not a tree, not a blade of grass, not an animal or a bird, or indeed a building, was left standing,” he said.
“We commit the bodies of these five Australian soldiers to permanent rest in this beautiful and sacred place, to lie at peace alongside their mates, ordinary men who did such extraordinary things.”
The remains of the Diggers were discovered during excavations for a pipeline last year. Two were identified from DNA – Sergeant George Calder, of the 51st Battalion, and Private John Hunter, of the 49th Battalion. The Australian Army flew the descendants of both men to Belgium for the re-interment ceremony.
The inscription on Private Hunter’s headstone best sums up the meaning of the event: “At rest after being lost for 90 years.”
The Commanding Officer of 51 FNQR, Lieutenant Colonel Paddy Evans, said it was a tremendous honour for the regiment to provide the ceremonial guard for the re-interment.
“This doesn’t happen very often, and to find one of your own from history who is in the original 51st is like we’ve gone full circle. And to have his relatives here and the closure it gives them is just fantastic,” he said.
As the coffins were eased into the ground, the sky again turned a gun-metal grey and there were spatters of rain – appropriate symbolism as the campaign in which the five Australians perished became mired in mud after heavy rain in October 1917.
Earlier in the day, some 51st Battalion members took part in an Anzac service at Tyne Cot Cemetery as part of the 90th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of Passchendaele.
Related imagery: Belgium re-interment ceremony