The month of July marked 100 years since the WW1 battles of Fromelles and Pozieres when thousands of Australian troops fought and died on the Western Front.
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Among those troops were 12 men recruited locally from around Bombala, Delegate, Bonang and Bendoc.
Local researcher Sandra O’Hagan, of Delegate, has discovered two of the men were killed in action at the Battle of Fromelles. Eric Victor Baldwin and Herbert Henry Bartley of Delegate were both killed on July 19, 1916, and their bodies never found.
Their names are on the VC Corner at the Australian Cemetery and Memorial at Fromelles in France.
Ms O’Hagan, who has been writing biographies of the local men who enlisted, said she had found the names of 10 other locals that died in the Battle of Pozieres.
“As far as I know I have all the men in the district,” she said.
The 10 local men killed in the Battle of Pozieres were Francis John McDonald, William Harold Baldwin, Thomas William Dent, Harold Clement Hyde, Edwin Ernest Woollett, Angelus Basic Elliott, Arthur William Armstrong, Leslie Vernon Helmers, Peter William Richmond and John Jones.
“I have downloaded all their records and been through every man’s folder to see when they died,” Mrs O’Hagan said.
Private McDonald was born in Bombala and 26 years old when he was killed. He is buried at the Pozieres British Cemetery.
The bodies of Privates Baldwin, Dent, Hyde, Woollett and Elliot were never discovered, however they are remembered at the Villers-Bretonneaux Memorial in France.
Sergeant Armstrong was wounded in action on July 28, 1916, and died the next day. He is buried at the Puchevillers British Cemetery.
Private Helmers was killed at the Battle of Pozieres on his 19th birthday. He is remember on the Villers-Bretonneux War Memorial.
Peter Richmond and Private Jones were both killed at Pozieres in the first week of August.