Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

2560 Sergeant David Samuel Anderson

Summary:
My Great Uncle was Sergeant David Samuel Anderson. He went to the first World War and served in Gallipoli, Egypt and France, where he was ‘missing in action’ after the Battle of Fromelles, in Flanders, France in July 1916. After almost a century of our family wondering what happened to him, in 2014 he was identified from a mass grave, and re-interred with his name on his headstone, at the Fromelles Military Cemetery.

The sadness of not knowing
Since childhood I remember my mother talking about ‘Uncle Dave’; about her mother and grandmother grieving and wondering what happened to their brother and son who went missing in France. They never really knew what happened to him; whether he was taken prisoner or killed, or lost his memory and was living somewhere else. They hoped he would somehow come home one day.

Who was David?
David was born at Bergalia (near Moruya NSW) in 1891. David’s father was the Manager of Bergalia Station, and died of Typhoid Fever in 1896 at the age of 39, leaving his wife Kissock with six young children to raise. Kissock moved to Sydney with the children and purchased a boarding house in Ultimo. David continued his education in Sydney, and became a manufacturing jeweller. I have a ring that he made. He was in the Scottish Rifles, a keen rugby player, played piano and was unofficially engaged to Esther Hamilton. David was tall with a solid build and ‘firm chin’, and very popular.

The long road to finding David
In 2001 I looked up David’s records through the Archives and the Australian War Memorial. I learned from his service record that David served in Gallipoli and Egypt before France. At the Battle of Fromelles, July 19-20 1916, David went ‘missing in action’. His body was never found, and he was not listed by the enemy as a prisoner. Surviving soldiers who fought beside him gave conflicting accounts, one that he had been taken prisoner, another that he had been killed. All however said that he had got into the German trenches. Eventually it was decided by the authorities that he had been ‘killed in action’, but nobody really knew for sure. He became one of the tens of thousands who had ‘no known grave’.

In 2007 I heard on the news that a mass grave had been found at Fromelles, which was believed to contain the bodies of 140 soldiers who had been killed in that battle where David went missing in July 1916, and buried by the Germans. This was incredibly exciting – the prospect of possibly finding David!

There was some controversy at the time, however, about whether the mass grave should be excavated, or the bodies left undisturbed. I contacted a group which was advocating for the excavation, and provided information about David and his family for an online article, pointing out that if the mass grave was not excavated, we would not find David, and the soldiers would not get a proper burial. The article was published online in 2008, and is still there: http://www.fromellesdiscussiongroup.com/pdf-display.php?id=byrnes.pdf . As it turns out, it is very lucky that I did contribute to that article, because it helped a number of people contact me with regards to David, but more on that later. Fortunately also, the Australian government decided to proceed with excavating the grave.

The Australian Army’s Unrecovered War Casualties (UWC) Unit asked people who thought they might be related to a soldier in the mass grave to register. I did so, as did other family members. The grave was excavated in 2009 and DNA samples taken from the bodies, together with other identifiying information, where available. There is a very interesting book all about the excavation, by Oxford Archaeology.

Very few soldiers were able to be identified from the excavation alone, as the ID tags had been removed by the Germans when they buried the soldiers, and sent to the Red Cross in Geneva. The Red Cross carefully kept the records but they were not ‘found’ until a historian was looking for them as a result of the mass grave at Fromelles being found (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7940540.stm ). During and after the war, for complex reasons many of these records did not find their way to the authorities, and therefore to the relatives of the deceased. The Germans did also carefully record the location of the mass grave (even with photos) but again for various complicated reasons it was not found, even after the war when the Commonwealth War Graves Commission were looking for graves. Books on Fromelles by both Tim Lycett and Peter Barton are good sources of information on why this information was never found after the war, and also about how how the mass grave was eventually found due to research by an Australian teacher, Lambis Englezos and friends – another complex and amazing story.

In 2010 the soldiers’ bodies were re-interred in a new military cemetery at Fromelles. The Army’s UWC called for relatives to provide DNA to help identify soldiers who had gone ‘missing in action’ at the Battle of Fromelles. My cousin gave UWC a family tree according to their specifications, and from that my mother was identified as a possible DNA donor, and provided DNA. However the Army subsequently told us that Mum’s DNA was 'not a match', so we assumed that meant that David was not in the grave.

In fact I discovered much later that Mum's DNA was a partial match, but more DNA donors were required to confirm it. However I didn't understand this from UWC's letters. We were only asked to ‘further investigate your family tree for DNA testing options’ (letter received April 2012). Part of the problem was that the UWC was under staffed, and they had hundreds of people to contact. They therefore sent only form letters, not ones specific to each family. I did phone UWC once in 2012, but was just told that they were under staffed as above, but we were still on the list and would be informed of any developments.

Then in 2013 a voluntary organisation called the Fromelles Association of Australia contacted me, after tracking me down via that online article about David from 2008! This group wanted to help find as many of the soldiers who had not yet been identified as could be, by contacting relatives of the remaining unidentified diggers and trying to find suitable DNA donors from the families.

The UWC cannot give out names of relatives due to Privacy laws, so the Fromelles Association of Australia had to find family members from what little information was publicly available. They explained to me in simple terms what was required to find a suitable DNA donor for David. That is, to find a male-only line DNA donor (light bulb moment). I provided a family tree to them, and using that plus online Births Deaths and Marriages data, they were able to find a suitable DNA donor. This meant going back to the generation before David, and tracing down the lines to find a suitable donor living today. The Fromelles Association produced a report in the form required by the Army, which was accepted. The DNA donor identified (whose great, great grandfather was David’s grandfather) provided DNA, and then we waited for the result. Just before Anzac Day 2014 we got the wonderful news from the Army that the DNA was a clear match and David was identified in the grave!

It was overwhelming to get this news, there are no words to describe it. I was in tears and shaking. I phoned all the family and we rejoiced together for hours. My mother was so happy. For so long we had thought that David was not in the mass grave at Fromelles after all, and would never be found. It was such a wonderful and unexpected relief to know he was there.

The headstone dedication ceremony
Eight family members travelled to France in July 2014 for the ceremony to dedicate David's headstone at the Pheasant Wood Military Cemetery in Fromelles. It was wonderful to see David's name on a headstone, in a beautifully kept Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, finally. We took with us his medals, a piece of Anderson tartan, a ring he made as a Jeweller, a photograph of David, and other items to 'show' David he had not been forgotten. It was very moving to be there, representing my family. My Mum was 91 years old and not able to travel to France. I was able to take photos and video so that I could show her the headstone and the ceremony. We also toured some of the other battlefield areas. It was sobering to see in cold hard marble and stone, all the tens of thousands of men who died, just in the First World War. The cemeteries and memorials are everywhere.

One of the things that was very special in France was finding out how much Australians are respected there, because of their role in helping to free France from the enemy which had invaded. In many houses in Flanders we saw Australian flags and other symbols, which the locals use to thank us and let us know how grateful they are. There are also schools which are especially designated as schools to promote understanding and exchange between France and Australia, because our soldiers fought for France.

What happened to David
There is now a Fromelles Museum which explains very clearly what happened in the Battle, and what each battalion did. From this and other reading we now know generally what happened to David. Fromelles was the first engagement of the Australians in France (the Western Front). The Australians had only just arrived and were not familiar with the terrain, they had to attack through boggy ground, and the German front line was very strongly fortified with concrete machine gun emplacements. The bravery of men leaving the safety of their trenches to attack under such conditions is unimaginable. The attitudes of the Generals who sent them on such a pointless attack is another story, well documented elsewhere. There were 5,500 casualties among the Australians in 24 hours, 1300 of which were ‘missing in action’: many still not found to this day. David’s battalion (the 54th) was one of the very few that were able to capture the heavily defended German front line. They also continued to advance into enemy territory, but this unfortunately was their undoing. The Germans ultimately circled around behind them and cut them off. From there it was only a matter of hours before they were all killed or taken prisoner.

In conclusion
Even though David Anderson was my great uncle, and I never knew him personally, the unresolved grief and sorrow is passed down through the generations because there is no closure when someone is missing in action. After all the research however I do now feel like I know David personally, in a way. I have his ring, I have his medals, I have been to his graveside, which I had a small part in bringing to fruition. I and my family are immensely grateful to the Australian Army UWC Unit and to the Fromelles Association of Australia for making this possible. Closure is a wonderful thing. We now feel we can lay David to rest in our hearts.

Jill Byrnes
April 2015
Published in the Fromelles Association of Australia newsletter, 2015