Hello everyone and welcome to Beater Battlefield. This week, the 16th to the 24th of May 2026, Marks War Graves Week. This is a very special week in the life of the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission. All over the world, there are three events tasking and showing the different types of work that the Commonwealth War Graves do. Formerly the Imperial War Graves Commission, it was created in 1917 for something that was completely new in the history of warfare. Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, there had been no fought for the dead, but with the mass numbers of men dying during the First World War, it was seen fit that these men needed to be remembered. And all those years later, we're still doing a great job. So, in this series of episodes, I've picked some of my favourite cemeteries to go to, but we're going to do some of the different countries. The Commonwealth War Graves looks after 1.7 million graves around the world in over 150 countries at 2,500 purpose-built cemeteries. And in the UK alone, there's 170,000 Commonwealth War Graves that you can find in every little churchyard and major cemetery. So I hope you enjoy. Hello, and in today's episode, as part of War Graves Week, we're going to talk about two new cemeteries built on the Western Front. In 2010, or 2009-2010, a new cemetery would be built at Framel. This was a changing point in the history of battlefield archaeology, and prior to this it was done by I wouldn't say amateurs, these men are dedicated to their cause, and for many years bodies have been recovered on the battlefields, but for this this was something very groundbreaking for its time. Fifty per cent of the casualties who died during the First World War either have an unknown grave or still lay out in those battlefields. But what was uncovered in the early 2000s was something quite amazing. The Battle of the Fromel would be the first time that the Australian troops would fight on the Western Front before moving up to the Somme. And it would be one of the bloodiest battles, which is a forgotten battle of the First World, First World War. It was a diversionary attack after the horrors of the Somme on the first July, and in one grave alone, this mass grave that was located, there were 250 men who died on the 19th of July 1916. Both British and Australians fighting side by side, and the battlefront at Fromel would be something as a lot very different when you go to any of these Western Front battlefields, to drive around the area which not many people go to and see the sheer number of blockhouses created by the Germans for their extension of Germany. The trenches traverse so much across fields and yards, and there would be so many killed in that one battle, there would have to be a ceasefire. There are no individual burials. The Germans buried them in mass pits, and if you go to VC Corner, we have what we would think would be a memorial to the missing, but it's in fact a memorial in a mass grave to remember all those who were buried in that sector there. But these 250 men, both British and Australian, was a turning point, and both governments, including the Commonwealth War Graves, came together to try and make sure that they could identify these men, as many as they possibly could, using DNA and finding nearly 2,600 artefacts, varying from personal items such as crucifixes, to a train ticket from Perth in Australia. That little souvenir that one man had kept on that fateful day. Now, the reason if we find a mass grave, quite often if they've been buried by the Germans, you won't find the dog tags on them. And that's because items are taken off the bodies and sent to the International Red Cross to let them know that they've found these men and they've died on that battlefield. So the Australians went hammer and tongs to try and locate the families of these men who had died on that day. We can be so finite, we know that the particular battalions, the particular men were there at that particular time and died on that particular day. It was so easy for them to try and find their relatives. And of the 205 Australians that were found, 96 of them would be identified. And this massive project to build a brand new cemetery, the first time a new cemetery on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves had been built in over 50 years. And it's an amazing place to go to. The town of Fromel are very greeting and welcoming. There's museums, visiting visitors centres, and even prior to the cemetery being built, we did a project with Fromel many years ago. And we were there for Armisters Day 2018. No, we weren't. 2008 we were there for Armisters Day, and the town greeted us and we we did a lot, a lot of it there. Then by 2010, the reburials and the cemetery purpose built an amazing engineering feat. They put a lot of effort into making sure these men were remembered and remembered properly. And day by day, an original First World War gun carriage would come and these men were buried with full military honours. So the 205 Australians, 96 are identified, and that leaves 45 British, of which only three are identified. The Western Front, as these cities and towns are extending, and we think back to Businger in the early 2000s, the thousands of men who were found in those areas there identified as best as they could. But as the years have progressed, the um the way we retrieve the dead, and if it is possible, DNA will be sought after. But as many people keep asking me, you know, why can't we uh DNA all soldiers? It's such a man of task. The British Army was made up of five million men, and for those who died, some of them would be the end of that line of that family. And we can't dig up the dead today and identify them DNA that way. But we but the Ministry of Defence do an amazing job, and if you get a chance, look up the war detectives, this band of women who are dedicated to this job, and it is for for them, it's a job, but also it's part of their life, and it is a passion. And I've been to several ceremonies and several rededications and several reburials on the Western Front, and it's an amazing experience to be part of. If any of you are interested in going to these ceremonies, always look up the Commonwealth Wargraves or the Ministry of Defence and they release the dates. Um past months we're now in May 2026. There are every month they're releasing rededications, and it's it's a if you get a chance, it is an amazing ceremony to go to. But I do believe that Commonwealth Wargraves and the Ministry of Defence don't want to turn it into a circus because there are times where I went to a reburial coming up to Remembrance Day 2018, and um the Butts New Cemetery was there must have been about a thousand people there, which is good, but sometimes it can turn it into a bit of a circus, especially for the for the families of there. So we always try to be as respectful as we possibly can. Where where where they find uh small amounts of remains, they s they find singular soldiers, there are dedicated concentration cemeteries all over the Western Front, within the areas of where these men have been found during the First and Second World War, there are still reburials going on the Second World War battlefields, and it wasn't too long ago five men from Arnhem were found and they were reburied at the Eustabeek cemetery from there. And this year, since uh 2024, there's been a extension on an old cemetery. I was in Lewes about a month ago, and it was a s it was a a battlefield that I've done several talks about, but I've never really had a chance to walk the ground. And you can go to Dud Corner and the Loose Memorial to the Missing, which bears the names of 20,000 men who have no known grave who died in that area. And of course, just a stones far away from it, we have the Vimy Ridge Memorial that remembers those men of Canada who died in France and have no known grave. And over the previous years, around the city of Luz and Lens, there has been much work going on around an area of known as Hill 70 during the second during the First World War, and it would be a massive battle for the Canadians, and there's been a new memorial park built there. Do you remember that battle of Hill 70? And it we do refer to it as the uh as the Hill 70 Skate Park, as you do find quite a few young people um riding their bikes around the site, but for their happiness and joy, those men died for that for that, which we always need to think about. But if you visit uh if you visit Hill 70, next door to it you have the Loose Cemetery. There are thousands of burials brought from all over the battlefield, but if you stand at the back wall, you look up onto the hill and you can see they're building a new hospital, and it's estimated they found nearly a hundred and forty remains there. So they've had to extend that cemetery, and they've got enough spaces, six plots for another twelve hundred graves, because at presently in France they are building the Canal d'An, which is a canal which will link most of France together to try and take um to try and be more environmentally friendly, taking vans off the roads and using that old skill of canals, and they cut right through the First World War battlefields, and I'm pretty sure we'll be hearing some interesting tales over the years. Recently, not too far from Ypres at the Panambeek Golf Course, they've uncovered a mass grave there. So it'll be interesting, that's only in the past couple of weeks, and it'll be interesting to see what their findings are from there. I did once read uh that they find roughly 104 remains per year, depending on how big the works are in the local area. Um, and it's estimated that one or two are identified, but the identification techniques have changed so much and we've moved on so much more forensically, more and more men are being identified, and families are forever being contacted. And it's it's always the people that you meet who have their relative who's been buried 110 years later. I mean, I do remember during the centenary of the first of the Battle of the Somme, going to the National Archives in Kew and meeting with the son of a First World War veteran who he was but he was born in 1916 and he'd never met his father, and we tried our hardest to make sure that he he got as much information as we could because it would be his first time going to the Somme and seeing that relative. But now we're talking about two or three generations later, people who had no knowledge and perhaps no knowledge of the of their children who had died during the war, and uh see those links coming together is an absolutely amazing, heartwarming thing to see. If you're interested in this sort of uh sort of work, if you're ever around the area of Arras, perhaps you're visiting the Wellington Tunnels, the beautiful city or Vimy Ridge, please pop into the Commonwealth War Graves Centre there. You can see them making the new headstones there. Every week they make about 50 to 60 headstones to replace those that have been damaged over a period of time, and obviously making the new headstones for those new remains that are being found every time. The um the Commonwealth War Graves have done amazing work over the past century, making sure that every man and woman is remembered equally. And also they tell you the stories of those remains that are being found all over the battlefield, and initially they are brought to this centre and then they are given to the respective nations. The French, on the other hand, they tend to, if a body is found, they'll try their best to identify it, and then they have dedicated osseries, and we think about uh Dourmont in Verdun, where you look through these windows and you're staring into the eyes of the skulls of those in those osseries. And if anyone's ever been to Langemark German Cemetery, we obviously have the mass grave inside the the centre of the cemetery. And I always thought the men were buried there in in that pit. They're kind of buried in there. There is actually a large garage where the bodies are all stored underneath that area, and then during the Hill 80 dig back in 2015, 2016, they found several remains near White Witscheter, and those men were taken there. I believe it was 41 remains of German soldiers reinterned in that area. The German Commonwealth War Graves equivalent is the Volksbund, and they were created in 1950, and it's a completely charity-run organisation which helps remembers all the Germans who died during the First and Second World War. During Covid, my grandmother um well my grandmother died many, many years ago, but I always put myself my information down for the Volksbund because our my grandmother's uh brother uh was lost during the Second World War, and we believed it was during the Battle of Berlin. And the old story goes that he was in the Hitler youth and he died in that final attack in in those latter days of April 1945. So I always put myself down next to Kin just in case he was found. And I had an amazing letter that I received during Covid that he had been located, except for he wasn't the young boy we thought he was, he was actually 34, and he'd been serving in the German army in Berlin, captured by the Russians, and he was taken to a Russian prisoner war camp in the post-war period, and his body was located in Minsk. So that was during Covid. His body was going to be brought back to Poland and buried in one of the mass cemeteries there. So I was waiting for the day and waiting for the call, and then of course the Russian war started. So uh Vili Zimmelkart is now still laying there, probably in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be re-reded. But please research, have a look at the different items that are on um on display. That for you, if you're researching soldiers of the First and Second World War, the reason I'm doing these videos is for this not these videos, sorry, these podcasts is for the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission Foundation, which is a charity branch of the Commonwealth Wargraves designed to outreach to people and give the future generations a way of remembering their war dead.