Today's harvest with the diggers in Boezinghe

[willy]

great work again Frans, regards to you all.

will

[frans]

Last saturday we recovered two british/commonwealth soldiers from the area of the international trench.

Soldier nr. 213 severall items were recovered but nothing to identify the soldier or the regiment.

Soldier nr 214 This soldier belonged to the Hampshire regiment. Nothing was found for the soldiers personnal ID.

I understand from the Hampshire regiment museum that the regiment was involved in the attack in july 1915 on the international trench. They sufferred 23 cassualties in this attack.

Photo's and more information will follow.

[willy]

Well done De Diggers.

[Neil Mackenzie]

Frans.

Many thanks for the continued updates.

Roughly how many men have you found in the area of Yorkshire and International trenches in the time you have been digging there (sorry if this has already been mentioned in this thread).

Thanks.

Neil

[Marc Thompson]

Soldier nr 214 This soldier belonged to the Hampshire regiment. Nothing was found for the soldiers personnal ID.

I understand from the Hampshire regiment museum that the regiment was involved in the attack in july 1915 on the international trench. They sufferred 23 cassualties in this attack.

Hello Frans,

Many thanks for the hard work that you and De Diggers undertake and for locating these lost souls.

I am so pleased that you recovered the remains of a soldier from the Hampshire Regiment last Saturday although it is sad to read that no personal id was found for him.

I undertook some of the research on behalf of the museum for you. Sorry if I gave the museum and thus you the impression that there were 23 1st Battalion casualties during the attack on International Trench (5th to 9th July 1915). The 1st Battalion actually suffered 1 officer and 31 OR KIA during this period, 23 of whom are listed as ‘missing’ on the Menin Gate. The remainder are buried at Talana Farm Cemetery. I would say that there is a good chance that the soldier you recovered will be one of the 23.

Marc

[frans]

Hello Frans,

Many thanks for the hard work that you and De Diggers undertake and for locating these lost souls.

I am so pleased that you recovered the remains of a soldier from the Hampshire Regiment last Saturday although it is sad to read that no personal id was found for him.

I undertook some of the research on behalf of the museum for you. Sorry if I gave the museum and thus you the impression that there were 23 1st Battalion casualties during the attack on International Trench (5th to 9th July 1915). The 1st Battalion actually suffered 1 officer and 31 OR KIA during this period, 23 of whom are listed as ‘missing’ on the Menin Gate. The remainder are buried at Talana Farm Cemetery. I would say that there is a good chance that the soldier you recovered will be one of the 23.

Marc

Hi Marc,

The response from the museum was very quick and pleasant.

I haven't had time to sit down and let all the information we have found really sink in.

Before today I found the spot we are digging very confusing in what we found.

We have found up tonow four soldiers which were no more then a few yards apart.

There is still land left where we could locate more, this we will see in the coming weeks.

In the papers it says that that they were on the right flank of the attack on the international trench.

This really confirms the spot where we found these soldiers.

The Hampshire regiment soldier had buliits on him which we date stamped 1914 which also confirms that it must have been early in the war 1914-15. There was a great shortage of ammunition until about sepstember 1915.

What has got me thinking is that the other three soldiers we have found had no ID "This is the big problem on the Boezinge battlefield where the action took place in 1915 and the soldiers had no ID disc" not even a regiment badge, but they carried some very distinctive items.

Just to name one is the bugle found on one of the soldiers.

The officer had some very distinctive items on him too. Might be able to narrow him down a bit.

I am going to send a full set of photo's to the museum of the items we have found and any other relevant information. If you so wish I would be pleased to send you the same material. If you could just send me your email address.

Thank you very much for your great help up to now,

Frans

[frans]

Frans.

Many thanks for the continued updates.

Roughly how many men have you found in the area of Yorkshire and International trenches in the time you have been digging there (sorry if this has already been mentioned in this thread).

Thanks.

Neil

Hi Neill,

On the Boezinge battlefield which is the area you mentioned we have recovered since 1998 214 soldiers of different nationalities. It is still the only place on the whole of the western front where so many soldiers have been recovered in such a small area. Since the early eighties whn the group started many more have been recovered but were not officially counted.

Other areas for example Langemark are counted seperately.

Regards Frans

[chaz]

Frans et al, good work.

can I ask, how do you know exactly where to start digging, is it pot luck as would not be picked up on a metal detector

and secondly when you find a body, what makes you think there may be more?

do you automatically enlarge the area (assuming a mass grave) or take a chance there may be more.

when do you know when to stop digging around looking for others that may be feet or inches from where you stop?

just a couple of amusing things Ive been thinking

[frans]

Frans et al, good work.

can I ask, how do you know exactly where to start digging, is it pot luck as would not be picked up on a metal detector

and secondly when you find a body, what makes you think there may be more?

do you automatically enlarge the area (assuming a mass grave) or take a chance there may be more.

when do you know when to stop digging around looking for others that may be feet or inches from where you stop?

just a couple of amusing things Ive been thinking

hi Chaz,

First of all we started here becuase it would become and is a building site.

We already knew that there would be a likelyhood of finding soldiers from the previous stretch we did on the international trench. Up to now we have recoverred about 125 soldiers from the international trench area. This last part was coverred by earth from building work from the building adjacent to this plot.

We don't specificly go looking for soldiers, we screen the whole area for any remains of the war.

If the soldier is waring anything with metal than we can locate him. For a soldiers remains to be found who is not wearing anything metal it is by luck.

We stop when the area has been screened completely.

The soldiers found on the Boezinge battlefield are found on the spot where they fell during the battle in july 1915. It would have been more fitting to have made the whole area from around farm 14 and then down the international trench a protected spot and have left the soldiers resting on the spot they fell.

But with hindsight I would have been a miljonair ten times over.

Frans

[Michael Johnson]

Franz,

From what you have seen, were these men buried in trenches (which would suggest that many more might have been buried along that stretch of trench), or are they random enough to suggest individual burials or shellhole burials?

[Simon Ward]

This is terrific stuff, well done to de diggers. I thought this had all finished, good luck chaps.

[frans]

Franz,

From what you have seen, were these men buried in trenches (which would suggest that many more might have been buried along that stretch of trench), or are they random enough to suggest individual burials or shellhole burials?

Michael they were burried in the trench. I get the impression up to now that they are still on the spot where they fell. When soldiers were burried by the comrades they are usually wrapped and laid in some orderly fashion.

[Michael Johnson]

Michael they were burried in the trench. I get the impression up to now that they are still on the spot where they fell. When soldiers were burried by the comrades they are usually wrapped and laid in some orderly fashion.

Then my thought is that there may be quite a few of them. Too many bodies to bury properly, so perhaps they just collapsed the sides of the trench.

[frans]

Then my thought is that there may be quite a few of them. Too many bodies to bury properly, so perhaps they just collapsed the sides of the trench.

There have already been many soldiers recored from this area and it would not surprise me if there are more to follow.

One of the main reasons the area is preserved so well is because the Belgian owner of the land who was a medic decided that the land was covered over and just used for grazing. This ment that anyting and anybody laid beneath the surface was in a way protected from the plow.

[Michael Johnson]

Frans, how far beneath the surface have these soldiers been found?

[delta]

Frans - once again my thanx for the wonderful work the Diggers are doing

Stephen

[Guest KevinEndon]

I still sit in awe at the photographs on this thread. It is unbelievable the amount of stuff that still comes out the ground, its hard to imagine whats there that will never be found. Thanks for sharing the finds with us, hope you are not getting the weather we are here in Blighty Frans, there wont be much digging going on if you are.

Kevin

[chaz]

Frans, thanks for explaining did anyone ever start the thread suggested where you tell the story from day 1 up to repatriation/reburial and the lie of the skeletons?

was there ever anything laid down as to direction East to West for example?

[frans]

Frans, how far beneath the surface have these soldiers been found?

Up to now we have recovered five soldiers on this spot and all of them around 12 to 18 inches deep.

Don't forget that the trenches from 1915 we no deeper than 2 feet.

Many visitors come over with the impression that the trenches are like the Black Adder trenches where you could park a whole regiment in, some of them take some convincing that the trenches in the first two years were only shallow slots. There is also a good reason for this. When the armies arrived the standard shovel maybe good for firing up the Titannic but is useless for digging in the yellow clay. Therefore in the beginning they dug as far as the claylayer and were then forced to stop.

[frans]

Frans, thanks for explaining did anyone ever start the thread suggested where you tell the story from day 1 up to repatriation/reburial and the lie of the skeletons?

was there ever anything laid down as to direction East to West for example?

I posted a topic in Battlefield in Danger.

It shows how we recovered a soldier from the Kings regiment in Langemark.

All finds are logged and documented in which direction they are found.

[ianw]

Hi Tom,

All the items found with the soldiers is reburried with them and is classed as personnal items regardless what is found.

It is the ruling which the CWGC has and I personnaly like it because there is no fuss or argument. The whole lot is reburried, full stop.

Frans

You may recall that we discussed the re-burial of items found with remains back in May. I sent a note to the CWGC at the time and I have just received a reply saying that it is quite permissible for items of historical interest to be presented to regimental museums on occasions when the regiment involved has been indentified. So there is no blanket ruling that items should always be re-interred with the remains.

Regards Ian

[Seadog]

Good evening Diggers - any news from Flanders, beginning to suffer severe withdrawal symptoms caused by lack of excellent reports of any progress, finds etc. Best Wishes.

Norman

[frans]

Before I start posting todays photo's I would just like to write the following.

As you will have noticed there has been little information posted on this forum of the work over the last few month's. This is not because De Diggers were not digging but that as many of you will know that my oldest boy Zak was very ill and passed away on the 11 th of August aged 16.5.

Mel, Cory and myself cannot thank everybody enough for the support and kind reactions from all over the world.

My boy who had a muscle disease was diagnosed ten years ago. This gave us time to cram as much living in the time we were to be given. We had no secrets, wasted no time and talked openly about dying. Although you think you are prepared, when the moment comes it still hits you hard.

I have no regrets and said what I had to say to him when he was alive.

Now back today.

This afternoon in a ditch at the side of the building site on the international trench we recovered the remains of a soldier, nr 215 found on the Boezinge site. It looks like the remains of an English/Commonwealth soldier. This soldier was blown into a thousand bits and any change of an ID are zero.

On the photo the spot where the remains are recovered.

This photo is looking towards the left of the above photo.

The international trench is now well and truly concreted over.

We managed to recover another six soldiers from this area over the past month's.

They will now receave a new last resting place and I feel we as a group have done our bit and treated these boys with the dignity they deserve.

The strong feeling I have is that these boys did not have a chance to say goodbye and must have left an unbearable burden to bare back home.

Frans

[chaz]

Frans, I feel for you and your family, sad news but probably a great relief.

good to hear you are about again and as you said, atleast you had a chance to say goodbye.

thanks for your efforts.

[ianw]

Great to have you back Frans - and we are all thinking of you and your family.

Thanks for all your efforts for those lost - but now found - in Ypres.