AUSTRALIANS IN FRANCE EXHIBITION: Maritime Museum, Port Adelaide
The horrendous carnage of World War One continues to touch many Australians. It certainly touched Channel Nine Newsreader Rob Kelvin when he visited the fields of Picardy to film his documentary about South Australian digger Russell Bosisto who was listed as missing following heavy fighting in 1916. His remains were found by a French farmer three years ago while ploughing his fields at Pozieres and were later buried with full military honours at a nearby military cemetery.
The names of more than eleven thousand other Australian soldiers who have no known grave in France are chiselled in stone at this memorial near Villers Bretoneaux.
"For the young members of our 1027 battalion today is a chance to reflect, for others an opportunity to meet up with relatives never seen, never known but family just the same"
"That's my great great uncle, and he was killed February 1917 in the Battle of the Somme, aged 20 years".
His story and the story of so many other diggers in France is told here at the Maritime Museum at Port Adelaide.
"1918. Australians in France is the first exhibition from the War Memorial containing original artefacts to come to South Australia so we're very pleased to have it. It's about the closing years of the war from 1918 to the end of the war. And we traditionally see trench warfare as a stalemate and a terrible grind. In 1918 that did change and the war became more mobile and the Australian Forces were instrumental in the turn around. They were troops that lead some of the first offensives that broke through the German lines".
From April until November 1918 twelve thousand Australians died in an area about the size of urban Adelaide. Among the notable soldiers produced by South Australia, the "Fighting Leanes of Prospect" must rank among the foremost. All five sons of Thomas and Alice Leane served with distinction in the Australian Forces. Two died on the battlefields of France.
The exhibition is brutally honest about a theatre of war in which 46,000 Australians died, but for all the horror it also has its lighter moments.
"Roff was a German messenger dog in World War One. Underneath his collar there is a tin barrel which you can see. Inside the barrel there are two messages. One from the German Field Commander to headquarters saying we're exhausted, we can't go on, we need help and the return message saying come on man, buck up, look at Roff he doesn't complain. But the irony is that Roff did complain, he defected to the Australians when he saw them cooking breakfast, so he changed to the other side".
A funnier moment in what is a tragic story, told at the Maritime Museum at Port Adelaide. Admission is $8.50 for adults, $6.50 for concession and $3.50 for children. Channel Nine will repeat Rob Kelvin's documentary "Private Bosisto - One of the Boys" on Anzac Day. More information from info@postcards.sa.com.au
