By Mike Senior
The attack at Fromelles in Northern France took place on 19th July 1916. The Battle of the Somme had begun on 1st July and Fromelles was an attempt to prevent German troops from moving south to help their hard pressed kamerads. Tactically, the Fromelles attack was a complete disaster. Two British and Australian Divisions, about 15,000 men, were involved and the aim was to capture the German front line over a distance of some three miles. The attack began at 6 pm on 19th July and ended at 8 am on the 20th. During that time the casualties amounted to around 9,000 men, fewer than 2,000 of whom were German. When the attack was called off, the trench positions were exactly the same as they had been 14 hours earlier.
One of the great ironies of this action is that most of the wounded and dead came from small villages in Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire; from villages in New South Wales and Victoria; and from the villages around Munich. And it was all about capturing another small village – Fromelles in the Pas de Calais.
During the attack nine men from the Lee were killed. They were all serving with the 2/1st Bucks Battalion. The bodies of two of them, Ralph Brown and Harry Pratt, were recovered and buried in military cemeteries. The bodies of the other seven – Arthur Brown, Sydney Dwight, Harry Harding, Arnold Morris, Charles Phipps, Percy Price and Edward Sharp – were never found. They are The Missing Men of The Lee.
Eight years ago, a Greek-born Australian, Lambis Englezos, set himself the task of discovering where all the missing Australians of Fromelles were interred. Of course, some of the missing would have been blown to pieces and could never be found, but Lambis calculated that some 400 Australians were not accounted for. After years of detective work using German and Red Cross records and aerial maps of the battle area, it seemed likely that some or all of these missing might have been buried, together with British soldiers, in a series of mass graves behind the German lines near Fromelles.
During the last week of May the dig eventually began with the aim of proving,
one way or another, whether remains were in fact there. After three weeks
of painstaking search the skeletal remains of thirty men have been found
and the archaeological team are convinced that they will find many more.
Since the 2/1st Bucks attacked alongside the Australians in the area near
the burial pits it is just possible that some of the missing men from The
Lee lie in one or other of those mass graves. It is highly unlikely that
any of the dead will be identified, but such items as an engraved metal cigarette
case or ring might provide valuable clues. The key question is how best to
commemorate these men, missing for 90 years. Should they each have an anonymous
headstone or should the site become a memorial to the missing men with an
appropriate monument?Jim Spence, Chris Carleton-Smith and myself were present during the first few days of the dig. It was both exciting and moving and the occasion had a sense of great dignity. The dig has now stopped until the Governments involved decide on the next steps. We are in touch with Lambis Englezos and other historians who are interested in the missing of Fromelles and we intend to follow further developments.