AUSTRALIAN WAR GRAVES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 77, 24 December 1919, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN WAR GRAVES

MANY STILL DNTRACED Although tho control of all matters relating to Australian was graves and memorials in Gallipoli, France, .and lyics , - tine has been taken over by the Commonwealth High Commissioner in London, tho Minister of Defence, in Australia has approved of the retention overseas of a, small A.I.F. unit until all tho battlefields have been thoroughly explored and isolated graves transferred to permanent \cenieterics. -Much work in connection with Australian graves remains to be accomplished preliminary to tho final treatment of cemeteries under Iho Imperial War Graves Commission's scheme. Some 39,000 burials have yet to bo either verified or traced. Sinco March of last year an Australian graves detachment operating In a difficult sector in Franco exhumed and roburied approximately 8000 bodies. The rolnirinl Virk is now being carried on by specially enlisted British units. The Imperial War Graves Commission having 'agreed to the proposal of tho Prime Minister (Mr. Hughes) to allow tho .erection of memorial erossie for those Australians whoso bodies aro not recovered, a special staff of 20 men has been detailed for this work (says tho "Ago"). Crosses arc being to show the complete regimental particulars of tho missing dead. The work of photographing the graven of Australian soldiers in France is still far from completion, and will probably ifot be finished before tho end of next year. Captain Chas. Mil!?, who has been in Germany for some months, has succeeded in tracing- and obtaining photographs of the graves of practically all the. Australian soldiers who died while prisoners of war in Germany. Photographs have also boon secured of the graves of practically all the men who fell in Palestine, Egypt, and Syria.

Tt lias been decided to erect Australian war memorials in various commanding positions in France. The silo selected for the national memorial is «t Hill 10i, near Villers Brctonnoaux, while divisional memorials will lie erected nt Poziores (Ist Australian Division), Mont St. Qiientin (2nd Division). I'r.ny-Corbio Road, north of the Sommn (3rri Division), ilm iMI-iifrisp, ]|ii;d(-nluim ouhinst line (|.th Division), Polygon Unite (sth Division). The divisional memorinijs will tako the form of nbeli?ks. 10 feet in height. They are being erected at a eosl: of .£I3OO by the Mayor of Charleroi, Belgium. The Second Australian Division is erecting a memorial of its own, the main feature being the bronze statuo of an Australian soldier bayoneting n Oiorman eaglo. Tho total cost will ljo ,t!!R0O, towards which tho Government will contribute £)M. To each obelisk will bo affixed a bronze inscription plate beneath a largo bronze replica of the Australian Rising Sun badge. The inscription will read:— To the Officers, Non-commissioned Olllcers, and Men Of the A'tstnlian Division Who Fnugnt in ' France and Belgium 1916-1917-1918. Below will follow Iho names of Ihe principal battle honours, as Messines, Passchenclaele, Villers etc. The cost of these bronzes will bo J.'200 for each division.

The preliminary work has tan completed at all ,the divisional , files, and Australian trophies* of war have been erected on the pies. The ground adjacent to the. various memorials has been preserved in its original shot-torn condition. The I'ozieres silo is peculiarly in. foresting, as it taker- in the German pill box known as Gibraltar and portion of tho original enemy front line trench. This trench was cleared by Australians with bomb and bayonet. When tho advanco passed over tho trench was littered with scores of German dead. The Polygon and Bellenglise monuments aro completed, except tor the. bronze work, while the Pozieres obelisk is in an advanced stage, fn Egypt thn. mounted divisions havo collected X.'iOOO to erect an An/.ac memorial. Tho expenditure of an additional J:sflftO has been improved by Mr. Hughes. The memorial is to bo erected in the garden l ; at Port Said, and dedicated to tho Anzao troops generally who fought in Gallipoli, Egypt, mid Palestine. In Palestine an obelisk similar to thoao in Franco will be erected at Jerus.ilom to the memory of llio Australian troops who fought there. .