Excavating the War Dead - Activity

Excavating the War Dead - Activity

Learning objectives

This activity is intended to help students develop an understanding of:

• How archaeological material can be used effectively to solve or discuss historical events
• The nature of trench warfare, i.e. experiences of soldiers, loss of life and the effects of war
• The importance of identifying human remains so that bodies can be buried in marked graves

Key National Curriculum Processes

• Historical enquiry
• Using historical evidence/sources
• Developing the ability to communicate about the past

Teaching Notes

• Archaeologists have always excavated bodies and there have always been vocal responses concerning what happens to those bodies after excavation. For some peoples (for example the Maori in New Zealand and Native American peoples across the USA), the excavation of human remains is a problematic issue, and very strict codes and guidelines have been drawn up to ensure that excavation only takes place with the agreement of indigenous communities. (For more information on the USA see ).

• The recent dead (those who died after 1800) are rarely excavated in Britain – and the few excavations that take place are largely cemetery clearances in advance of major developments (the removal of the cemetery of St Pancras Old Church, in advance of construction of the Channel Tunnel rail terminus, is a good example: ).

• WW1 took place less than 100 years ago, and although many fallen soldiers were buried in specially created cemeteries, a large number of bodies were not recovered. It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 unrecovered bodies along the WW1 western front. It is not surprising, therefore, that human remains are often found by archaeologists working there. This raises some tricky ethical issues (good for classroom discussion!):

Should soldiers’ remains be excavated and examined or left to rest in peace?

If individuals can be identified, should their remains be taken home (repatriated), or should they be reburied in commemorative cemeteries in the country in which the soldier died?

These problems are compounded by the fact that professional archaeologists are not the only people interested in the war dead. As a look at EBay and collectors’ websites quickly shows, WW1 personal effects and military insignia are much prized by enthusiasts or all kinds, and a good deal of metal detection takes place illegally on the Western Front: an unethical practice which destroys archaeological evidence and ruins chances of identifying disturbed remains.

Activity preparation and overview

Before the lesson

Place the artefact printouts in five separate envelopes or paper folders marked “Source 1”, “Source 2” etc etc.

Step 1(PPT slides 1-6)

Split the class into five groups sitting at desks around the room. Each desk has an envelope containinga picture of one of the artefacts:the envelope should remain sealed until step 2. Start the PPT as a slideshow and it automatically advances through Part 1 – The Battle of Fromelles, and Part 2 – The Fromelles Project, with images and information provided along with an audio voiceover.

Step 2(PPT slides 7-12)

At Part 3 – Enquiry, the PPT provides a number of questions for students to think about while looking at their artefacts. Ask the students to open the envelopes and look at the artefacts that were found alongside human remains during the excavation.

Curiosity about what other groups might have will make the students want to move around the room and look at the other artefacts. Let them do this but draw attention to the key questions on the static PPT slide (these are also written on the artefact printouts). This step encourages students to think about different ways thatarchaeological evidence can be used as a source and how artefacts can provide important information about the identities of soldiers.

Students should return to their seats for a discussion with the teacher about what they think their artefact can tell them. When each group has come up with a few ideas, click the PPT to start off the automatic descriptions of each artefact.

Step 3 (PPT slides 13-17)

PPT automatically continues through Part 4 - Identifying the Dead, providing information about identification processes used during the Fromelles Project as well as how one of the artefacts led to the positive identification of a soldier. Slide 17 provides information about why the Fromelles Project is important.

An interesting documentary that provides examples of positive identifications of soldiers from the evidence found during the Pheasant Wood excavations can be found here:

Step 4 – Additional classroom/homework activity

An additional activity is provided in Part 5 – Identification Activity showing that the Fromelles Project is not the only example of an excavation taking place on a WW1 site containing human remains. It shows the skeleton of a German soldier along with a number of artefacts found buried with him at Serre in northern France: part of the Somme Battlefield excavated by the No Man’s Land World War Archaeology Group in 2003. The identification activity asks students to use the knowledge gained from the Fromelles activity to suggest different ways that the German soldier might be identified.

Voiceover Transcript

Slide 3 – The Battle of Fromelles

On the 19th and 20th July 1916, a huge battle took place near the village of Fromelles in northern France. British and Australian soldiers fought German forces along a 4km stretch of the Western Front hoping to secure an area known as the Sugar Loaf. The plan of attack, however, had been based on incorrect intelligence, so when British and Australian forces went ‘over the top’ they were fiercely attacked by the Germans who had built hidden concrete pillboxes and gun-platforms around the Sugar Loaf. The battle lasted for 12 hours and there were thousands of casualties. The battle has been famously remembered as ‘The worst day in Australian military history’.

Slide 5 – The Fromelles Project

Many battlefields were searched by military groups after the war so that the bodies of lost soldiers could be buried and commemorated in special cemeteries built by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). The nature of fighting during the First World War meant that it was not always easy to locate fallen soldiers and in some places, like Fromelles, bodies were buried by the enemy in un-marked graves. In 2007 an Australian researcher found a note in a German war archive that mentioned the burial of 225-400 men in a mass grave site near Pheasant Wood, not far from the Fromelles battlefield. The Fromelles Project was set up to investigate the Pheasant Wood site an after a trial excavation that found human remains in the area, it was decided that a large-scale excavation project should take place: to recover the bodies from the grave and have them re-buried in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles.

Slide 6 – The Fromelles Project

The pictures on this slide show the excavation in progress. Archaeologists used heavy machinery to strip back the turf layer before getting into the trenches and excavating by hand. These bodies had remained undisturbed, or, as archaeologists say, ‘in-situ’, since they were buried after the battle in 1916; so archaeologists wore protective clothing in case any of the bodies carried traces of disease, but also to prevent contamination of the site. Human remains and any artefacts that were found, were carefully excavated, examined and recorded so that they could be used in the forensic part of the project when trying to identify forgotten soldiers.

Slide 7 - Part 3 – Enquiry

How were the artefacts (objects) found in the graves used to identify the soldiers buried at Fromelles? In your groups, look at each artefact and try to work out: what is it? What was it used for? Is it from a military uniform or is it a personal item? Could it be used to determine whether the soldier was Australian or British? Does it provide clues that might help to identify and name an individual soldier? If you don’t think the artefact can tell you any of these things, then try to think of another way that the bodies at Fromelles might be identified. Talk this over in your groups for about 5 or 10 minutes and then click the screen to advance the PowerPoint.

Slide 8 – Source 1

Source 1 is a second-class train ticket marked from Fremantle to Perth. It tells us that the body it was found with was likely to be an Australian soldier. It is a personal item that does not tell us the identity of the soldier but it does tell us about his experience of travelling from Fremantle to Perth by train, which was the departure point for warships heading to France. The soldier never came home and the return section of the ticket remained unused.

Slide 9 – Source 2

Source 2 is a Shire of Alberton medallion. The medallion shows the AIF logo of the Australian Imperial Force – a voluntary division of the Australian army. Other decorations include a place name, the Shire of Alberton; and two dates, 1914 and 1916, written around a horse-shoe, a symbol of good luck. Perhaps there is a record of people who received this type of medallion which could help identify its owner.

Slide 10 – Source 3

Source 3 shows an Australian ‘Rising Sun’ collar badge. It’s very corroded and the picture below it shows an intact surviving example. The Australian uniform included three of these badges: one large one on the side of the hat and two smaller badges, one on each side of the collar. The body this was found with was almost certainly an Australian soldier. It cannot tell us the identity of the soldier as it is a standard part of uniform, common to the majority of excavated Australian soldiers.

Slide 11 – Source 4

Source 4 is a pocketwatch. It’s difficult to tell this because the inside is badly corroded, but the size and shape, along with engraving on the lid, shows us that it is a pocketwatch. The engraving says ‘Sherwood and Co. London 1916’ – this was a company that made pocketwatches. It was common for officers to keep a pocketwatch in a chest pocket, so the remains it was found with might belong to a British officer. It might be possible to trace the names of British officers who fought at Fromelles and narrow down the identity of the soldier, although more forensic might help in making an accurate identification.

Slide 12 – Source 5

Source 5 shows a leather purse and a leather fragment along with 8 Ottoman coins. The owner of this purse might have fought in the campaigns around modern day Turkey during WW1. It is known that some Australians who fought at Fromelles had experienced the conflict at Gallipoli earlier in the war. Would it be possible to search military records for the names of soldiers who fought in both areas, to narrow down the identity of the dead soldier?

Slide 14 – The Identification Process

Altogether, around 250 sets of human remains and about 6,200 individual artefacts were found in the four grave-pits at Pheasant Wood. Every bit of excavated soil was carefully checked, both inside the trenches and in the spoil heaps to make sure that nothing was missed. Archaeologists individually labelled skeletons and artefacts so that during the analysis in the lab, all pieces of evidence relating to an individual were kept together and would not be separated. This was essential so that the next part of the project could begin – the identification of dead soldiers.

Slide 15 – The Identification Process

The excavated human remains and artefacts provided a starting point for identifying bodies. Items like the Rising Sun badge or the pocketwatch could suggest the nationality of the individual, or tell the army to which the soldier may have belonged, but to get a more accurate identification further steps needed to be taken. Forensic experts took a DNA sample from the bones and teeth of each skeleton to create a unique genetic profile for each soldier. DNA is a molecule that takes a long time to break down and it can tell you all sorts of things. For example, an sample taken from the teeth contains a molecular record that scientists can analyse to find out the different places a person may have drank water in their lifetime. DNA also contains genetic material that is passed down through families, so this would play a key role in helping to identify soldiers from Fromelles. A list of names was produced of soldiers who fought at Fromelles that had no known grave or their bodies had never been found. The DNA testing program gave living relatives of soldiers who fought at Fromelles the chance to provide a DNA sample on a simple ‘cheek-swab’ that could help identify a body if a DNA match was found.

Slide 16 – The Identification Process

An example of positive identification came through a combination of using artefacts, DNA samples and a lot of background research. Tim Whitford is an Australian whose Great Uncle fought at Fromelles. When Whitford heard about the discovery of the Shire of Alberton medallion, he researched the names of soldiers who’d received this type of medallion and found out that they all came from a small area in southeast Australia. The modern town of Yarram is located within this area and its war memorial contains the names of 74 soldiers who fought and died in WW1.

Research into the National Archives of Australia showed that four soldiers on the Yarram war memorial diead at Fromelles, one of whom was Whgitford’s Great Uncle. Out of the other three, research showed that Corporal Frederick David Livingston never received a medallion; Private Isaac James Lear did receive a medallion but his file stated that his initials were inscribed into the back of his – the one found at Pheasant Wood did not have these initials; Private Herbert Gilfoy was shot in the head at Fromelles, taken to Calais General Hospital, died, and was buried in Calais Southern Cemetery – it’s likely that he did have a medallion but he was never present at Pheasant Wood, so it can’t be his.

That leaves Private Henry Victor Willis, Whitford’s Great Uncle. Records show that he was born and enlisted in the Shire of Alberton; a letter from his Mum in the Alberton archives confirms that he had a medallion, and the Red Cross wounded and missing file confirms that he was killed at Fromelles. A DNA sample then provided by Tim Whitford in 2009, matched one of the DNA profiles from the remains of a soldier in trench 4 at Fromelles, and Private Henry Victor Willis was laid to rest under a named headstone in the new Pheasant Wood Cemetery in 2010.

Slide 17 – The Identification Process

The Fromelles Project highlights the importance that archaeology can play in providing information about periods of the past that might not, at first, seem too distant. But as the 100 year anniversary of the outbreak of world war one approaches, remembrance and commemoration of lost soldiers is increasingly important.

By identifying soldiers buried at Pheasant Wood and re-burying them in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Fromelles, dead soldiers are being treated in the same way as thousands of other men and women who fought for their countries in the first and second world wars.

The importance of this process can be seen in the visitor book at the Pheasant Wood Cemetery, in the many comments left by friends and families of the soldiers who were identified during the project.