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Imperial War Museum Exhibition - Remembering Fromelles
In May 2008, after several years of painstaking research and investigation, a number of group burials dating from the First World War were identified at Pheasant Wood, near Fromelles in northern France.
In May 2008, after several years of painstaking research and investigation, a number of group burials dating from the First World War were identified at Pheasant Wood, near Fromelles in northern France.
A year later, archaeologists from Oxford Archaeology began to excavate the graves and by early September 2009 they had carefully removed the remains of 250 British and Australian soldiers, buried behind German lines after the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916. The British and Australian Governments asked the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to oversee the operation and to create a new military cemetery at Fromelles.
Using specially commissioned photographs, this new exhibition traces the story behind the first new Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery to be built in nearly half a century. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the dead of the First World War were honoured and how the work of the CWGC continues to commemorate the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars.