Excavators near a rural village in northern France began work on Tuesday unearthing the remains of as many as 400 long-lost Australian and British soldiers who perished in World War I.
The remains, buried in a cluster of mass graves discovered last year, are to be individually reinterred in a cemetery being built near the site.
Australian, British and French dignitaries gathered in the village of Fromelles for a ceremony marking the launch of the project, which is expected to in one year.
“Today marks the beginning of the journey to afford many of those killed at Fromelles with a fitting and dignified final place of rest,” said Admiral Sir Ian Garnett, Vice Chairman of Australia’s Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is charged with overseeing the excavation.
An Australian amateur historian discovered the graves — which contain the largest group of Australian remains from World War I ever found — in a muddy field on the edge of a small wood, prompting an investigation by the Australian government.
Australia has since commissioned the construction of the nation’s first war cemetery in more than 50 years near the site and dispatched a team of archeologists to exhume and attempt to identify the remains.
“This site is part of our national story,” Australian Minister for Defence Science and Personnel Warren Snowdon said. “It filled a gap in our history.”
The remains appear to date from a single, famously ferocious night of fighting more than 90 years ago. Late on July 19, 1916, Australian forces launched the battle of Fromelles, the first Australian combat operation on the Western Front.
The battle has since been regarded as “the worst wartime tragedy in Australian history,” Snowdon said.
More than 5,500 Australians were killed, wounded or went missing at Fromelles in under 24 hours, along with more than 1,500 British, cut down by German machine guns and artillery. German troops buried them afterwards, Australian investigators say.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS