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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Hill 80 BBC Breakfast


Alan24

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Piece about 120 bodies found at Hill 80 on BBC Breakfast this morning at 06.22.

Al Murray also on later in his capacity as patron of the charity carrying out the dig.

 

Alan.

Edited by Alan24
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I'm just watching it.

 

I'm not that convinced about the comments given by the interviewed person.

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10 minutes ago, nigelcave said:

Which Hill 80?

Wijtschate whitesheet.  

 

Www.Hill 80.Com 

 

Alan.

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I was pleased to see this given mainstream tv time. Sad it had to be fractured though but pleased to see Me Murray standing up to be counted.

I am not sure I would be too comfortable living in the soon to be built houses as ww1 is too recent in history, is that me being too sentimental?

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14 hours ago, DavidOwen said:

 

I am not sure I would be too comfortable living in the soon to be built houses as ww1 is too recent in history, is that me being too sentimental?

 

I thought that too but in one interview I saw someone made the point that wherever you are there you could be living on or walking over battle 'remains', which I suppose is true. This is a multi-property development, I have no idea how much investigation is done before a single building. 

 

4 hours ago, JOVE23 said:

Are there any plans to DNA test these soldiers to try to ID them?

 

They have thousands of artefacts to go through. Specialist teams will work on the human remains, they don't have a definitive figure as yet for how many found until they have thoroughly assessed. I don't know about DNA testing but I understand that they will investigate wherever possible to see if identify can be discovered. They know German, French, British and (I think, I will double check and correct if wrong) South African soldiers were found.  

 

Margaret

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There were quite a number of media articles about DigHill80 yesterday, the fiinal day on site. 

I have just seen this one:

https://www.dw.com/en/crowdfunded-archaeology-dig-hill-80-explores-the-wwi-ypres-salient-battlefield/a-44668778

 

This article is in German but some of the videos and interviews are in English. Sticks in the ground with an orange top show location of human remains to be excavated. The chap in the red hat is the explosives expert.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/der-erste-weltkrieg/dighill80-eine-einzigartige-weltkrieg-stellung-15679763.html

 

Margaret

 

 

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It was a crowd funded dig. I made a small donation.

 

I've had several updates over the last few months via email.

 

most of the soldiers unearthed are German, I believe from Bavarian regiments(?), with a number of British men too.

 

this plot of land is to be built on soon and the archeologists has a small window to excavate the area. I just hope they have found all those who fell.

Edited by wandererpaul
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I have been researching a lot about German cemeteries etc. and the fact that so many were found there, seems to indicate that the German units around Wijtschate didn't exhume and rebury the 1914 graves to new concentration cemeteries in 1915-1917 as they did elsewhere on the Ypres front. I had already suspected this but these seem to be confirmed now. Strangely enough, the Allied (British) grave registration units after the war missed these completely as well?

Very remarkable...

 

Jan

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