Ernest Dalziell, my great uncle, died of wounds in the second battle of Bullecourt in April 1917, at the age of 19. His story was told at the Australian War Memorial in 2017 and is contained at https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2278444, including a video of the service. He has no known grave and his name is inscribed on the memorial at Villers Bretonneux.
John Wesley Grant, my great-great uncle died from wounds following the second battle of Bullecourt, at the age of 22. He died in an English hospital.
Tragically, there were over 10,000 Australian casualties in the two battles at Bullecourt with no significant advantage gained. Most soldiers were buried where they lay in unmarked graves. As a result, many Australian (and British) soldiers lost confidence in British command and were bitter about the futile waste of life. General John Monash wrote “Our men are being put into the hottest fighting and are being sacrificed in hair-brained ventures, like Bullecourt and Passchendaele…”
Prior to WW1, Bullecourt was a very pretty town with 396 inhabitants. It was reduced to a pile of brick and timber. Long after the war farmers found many weapons, human bones and other objects. The magnitude of the findings indicated there had been a major battle and yet there was little available information. A local teacher realized the number of dead accounted for in the area did not come close to reported casualties. Over many years, the mayor of Bullecourt, Jean Letaille and his wife Denise collected objects such as weapons and soldiers’ personal belongings found in the fields and surrounding countryside.
Bullecourt 1917 Museum is a local museum created by the town’s people. It has existed in various forms since 1980, when local people investigated the story of Bullecourt and questioned the absence of a memorial in the region. Funding from the Australian government enabled the museum to be constructed in its present form in 2012. Of the museums visited, we found Bullecourt 1917 Museum the most moving. Compact, the museum’s power comes from the humanity, and love with which it has been put together. It contains the donated collection of Jean and Denise Letaille, and tributes and personal belongings from families in Australia.
Unexploded bombs are still found by farmers today. Just last year, a bomb was found by an Australian tourist (and then thrown away in terror….)
The Australian Memorial Park was opened in 1993, just outside Bullecourt amidst tranquil farmland. There’s a bronze statue of an Australian Digger, with the inscription, Sacred to the memory of 10,000 members of the Australian Imperial Force who were killed or wounded in the two battles of Bullecourt, April – May 1917, and to the Australians and their comrades in arms, who lie forever in the soil of France. Lest We Forget.
The region is full of war cemeteries and memorials. There is now no possibility of forgetting here.