From the March 18th Guardian.co.uk "First World War soldier's family welcomes discovery of body" by Stephen Bales.
Harry Willis, 19, was killed in the disastrous July 1916 Battle of Fromelles on the Western Front while attacking German lines near Lille. His body was found in a newly discovered burial pit along with 250 other Australian soldiers.
The Australian attack was supposed to take pressure off British troops at the Battle of the Somme, about fifty miles away. On that day, there were 5,533 Australian casualties and as such it is often referred to as the worst 24 hours in the country's history.
Two small horseshoe-shaped good luck medallions were found by his body. They had been presented by local authorities in Alberton, Victoria, after he had volunteered in 1915.
The pit was the largest mass World War I burial site discovered in the past eighty years.
Willis was part of a Lewis machine gun crew. It is known that he was shot through the jaw in hand-to-hand fighting in the German trenches. All five of the Willis brothers joined the service in the war and two were killed.
A Long Time Coming. --Cooter
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