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Archiver > AUS-MILITARY > 2000-04 > 0956921673


From: Ross Mallett <>
Subject: Re: Help please before ANZAC Day.
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:34:33 +1000
In-Reply-To: <v0422080eb52907bd9e80@[210.84.10.224]>


At 08:02 AM 24/04/2000 +1000, you wrote:
>Hi,
>I have just obtained the service records of three of my great uncles and I
>am wanting to send information about their service out to my own family
>and many cousins later today so that we can pay proper tribute to these
>brothers who all served in the Great War on ANZAC day.
>
>Frank Arthur O'LEARY was killed in action in France on 7/1/1917. He was in
>the 46th Battalion.
>
>Would any one know the whereabouts of the 46th Battalion on 7/1/1917? I
>know that they were in France somewhere around Flers and Combles but would
>anyone know what they were actually doing that day and exactly where they
>were? For example was that an area where they would have been engaged in
>trench war fare or were they fighting in tanks?

The only tanks were rusting hulks knocked out in the fighting months
before. Australians would not fight alongside tank until Bullecourt in
April of 1917.

The Australians were merely holding the line through the long Somme winter.
There were no battles until Stormy Trench the next month, but sniping and
shelling (war as usual) continued intermittenly



>There is no mention of how Frank was killed or what sort of action the
>battalion was engaged in. The record just says "killed in action",
>France. He was buried in the Switch French Cemetery, Flers, two and three
>quarters of a mile NW of Combles. I read that 110 mainly Australian
>soldiers were buried in this cemetery. Were they all from the 46th Battalion?

There are 202 Australians buried there, from many units. They were
gathered in after the Armistice from a number of smaller cemetaries that no
longer exist -- Flers Dressing Station Cemetary, Flers Road Cemetary,
Ginchy ADS Cemetary, Ginchy Royal Field Artillery Cemetary, Needle Dump
Cemetary, and Switch Trench Cemetary. In all, Guard's Cemetary contains
3050 graves (including 202 Australian) of which 1642 are unknown (including
19 Australian -- identified from their AIF badges).


>One of the other documents with his war records states that he was killed
>'in a field, France.' Another states that his body was later exhumed and
>reburied at Guards Cemetery Lesboeufs, France. Why would they have
>exhumed his body and would they have exhumed the bodies of all the other
>Australian soldiers too?
>regards
>Christine

Not in general. Many, if not most, Australians lie where they were
originally buried. Commonwealth War Graves tend to be small compared to
those of other nations, because the French and Belgians handed over the
land on favourable terms. But some cemeteries had been created on private
land, which had to be acquired; the agricultural land in that part of the
world is very valuable and productive; some of the locals don't like
cemeteries that are too prominent; and the Commonwealth war Graves
Commission finds large cemeteries more economical to tend than small ones.

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