Military cemetery | Ray and Shelley's Retirement Adventures

We stopped at the Fromelles Memorial Park to see the Australian monument. The memorial park is situated on the German defensive line which was attacked on 19 July 1916 by the Australian forces at the Battle of Fromelles.

Cobbers Sculpture at the Formelles Memorial monument

The sculpture of two soldiers in the center of the memorial park is dedicated to the men who fought and fell in the Battle of Fromelles on 19 and 20 July 1916.

There were also remains of German machine gun bunkers at the memorial park.

After visiting the Australian Memorial Park, we stopped at the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery which was only a short distance from the Australian Memorial Park. This cemetery is a significant memorial for Australia.

We walked through the cemetery looking at the gravestones of both British and Australian soldiers. The history of this cemetery is unique because it was constructed between 2009 and 2010. It is the first new Commonwealth War Graves cemetery for more than 50 years.

Australian Gravestone at the Pheasant Wood Cemetery

We were surprised by the amount of Australians that were involved in the first world war. There were over 416,000 Australians that enlisted for WW I and over 60,000 died over the period of the war.

The Pheasant Wood Cemetery contains the graves of 250 British and Australian soldiers who died on 19 July 1916 in the Battle of Fromelles. The cemetery is located on a section of the front line during the battle of Fromelles. Their bodies were discovered following research by a retired teacher, that also included analysis of aerial photographs. They discovered mass graves on the edge of Pheasant Wood, just outside the village of Fromelles.

There were Australians on our tour and they were able to locate a relative which was buried at the cemetery. It was a moving experience for them and reminded everyone just how far-reaching the impact of the war was.

“Au revoir et passez une bonne journée”

We went to see the Thiepval Memorial which is located near Thiepval France. The memorial commemorates the missing British and South African soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme during the First World War.

The memorial was a large arched monument that was quite impressive.

The monument was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and was built between 1928 and 1932. It is the largest Commonwealth Memorial to the Missing in the world.

Each the stone columns are inscribed with the names of missing soldiers during the Battle of Somme. There are 72,246 officers and soldiers names engraved on the columns.

Names inscribed on the column of the Thiepval Memorial

We read some of the names engraved on the wall and came across a few names which had a poppy beside them. When a soldier’s remains were recovered that was previously listed as missing a poppy is attached beside their name on the monument.

Poppy beside the soldier’s name, whose remains have been located.

Behind the monument is the Thiepval Anglo-French Cemetery. The Thiepval Memorial also serves as an Anglo-French battle memorial.

View of the Thiepval Anglo-French Cemetery from the monument

We walked through the cemetery looking at some of the graves of the soldiers. What we found very sad was the number of gravestones of unknown soldiers.

View of the Thiepval cemetery with French crosses on the left and British gravestones on the right

There were two different types of gravestones. One was rectangular and were for the British and the other one was a stone cross for the French. The British gravestones were simply marked with “A Soldier of the Great War/ Known unto God”. The French Cross gravestones were marked with “Inconnu” which means “unknown”

It was a moving experience seeing the monument and the number of names listed as missing.

“Au revoir et passe une bonne journée”

Life is too short to wait for adventure!