May he Rest In Peace
For the last 3 years an employee of Natural England (an NDPB that I worked with whilst at defra some years ago), has spent a week each summer volunteering as part of a Great War archaeology group called No Man’s Land that has been undertaking an archaeological dig in Belgium. The multi-national group has been following the fate of the 33rd Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Australian Army, who trained on Salisbury Plain and were then deployed at the Battle of Messines in 1917.
In 2008 the group recovered the remains of an Australian soldier from an excavation in a flax field, the soldier has now been identified as Private Alan Mather. Private Mather will be buried with full military honours this month with members of his family in attendance.
