One hundred years after one of the deadliest and most devastating battles in Buckinghamshire’s military history, Royal British Legion members revisited the French battleground to pay their respects.
In 1916, the Bucks Battalion fought alongside the Australian division, with both forces suffering a remarkable loss of life.
The British 61st Midlands Division suffered 1,500 casualties and the Australians a staggering 5,500.
Invited by the mayor and ‘Anciens Combatants’ of Fleurbaix and Fromelles, legionnaires and standard bearers from all over the county joined together to pay tribute in an emotional ceremony at Le Trou Aid Post cemetery.
Bucks RBL county president, Lt Col Simon Wilkinson, and his French wife Beatrice commemorated occasion with a poem reading.
Mr Wilkinson said: “The people of Fromelles could not have been more reverend or more hospitable, they delivered a very memorable service and then afterwards greeted us so warmly and despite the language barriers we all had a wonderful day, free drinks, camaraderie and a world war one re-enactment group set the scene.”
The veterans finished the ceremony by visiting the Australian ‘Cobbers’ memorial and the new Commonwealth war graves where, in July 2010, around 250 bodies were re-buried.
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