Monday, April 13, 2015

Names of 731 Anzacs Found at Naours Cave in France: "Merely a Private"

From the April 6, 2015, AuWorld "Rge Names of 731 Anzacs found in cave under World War I battlefield in France' by Greg Keller.

ANZACs were soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

Allied soldiers left similar inscriptions in the tunnels of Arras and Vimy, but Naours, well back from the front lines in World War I, were not used as shelters and hospitals like other Western Front quarries.

Naours is just a few miles from Vignacourt, a town used as a staging area for troops moving up to and back from the Somme battlefield to the east.  Young soldiers would take a break for some sightseeing and these were nearby.

The diary of Wilfred Joseph Allan Allsop, 23, private from Sydney noted on Jan. 2, 1917, "At 1 pm 10 of us went to the famous caves near Naours where refugees used to hide during time of Invasion."

Herbert John Leach, 25, from Adelaide wrote his name, a message and the date, "H.J. Leach.  Merely a private.  13/7/16.  SA Australia."  Sadly, he was killed August 23, 1916, at the Battle of Pozieres barely a month after he left his message.

On his grave at the Australian Cemetery in nearby Flers, his father inscribed this on his marker "Duty Nobly Done."

--Cooter

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