Fromelles: The Final Chapters

In July 1916, thousands of young Australian soldiers were slaughtered in France at the Battle of Fromelles, known as our nation's worst 24 hours. For ninety years, the fate of those diggers was unknown. In 2008, the remains of 250 Australian soldiers were discovered in an unmarked mass grave at Pheasant Wood, a burial site that had been missed in all post-war recoveries.

This is the story of a mission to restore the identities of the lost diggers, using fragments of information, military records, DNA, genealogy and persistence. Former crime-scene police officer Tim Lycett and genealogist Sandra Playle were at the vanguard of the amateur network, working alongside bureaucracies across the world to link the dead with their families nearly a century after the event.

Thanks to their diligent research, the missing soldiers emerge from the obscurity of dusty files and precious old letters to tell their version of what happened so long ago and so very far from home. The identification project is ongoing, all in the common cause of commemoration and remembrance.