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instead to hand-dig a series of sondages (test pits), positioned differently in each pit to give the maximum chance of an accurate overall cross-section. Each sondage was the width of the original burial pit (a little less than two and a half metres) by a metre and a half. The idea was then to dig down through the pit to the bottom or until they discovered human remains.
    Each sondage took around four hours to dig.
I can still feel the relief when, at the bottom of the sondage through Pit 5, we exposed human bone. We found it about one metre twenty from the top of the pit, which is over 1.75 metres or so from the top of the present ground surface.
    In Canberra, the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Warren Snowdon, made the announcement that excavation of a small trial trench over one of the pits had uncovered human remains at around 5 pm local time on Tuesday 27 May. He added:
Human remains have been uncovered during the limited excavation of a suspected World War I burial site which is being investigated by the Australian Army in France.
    At this stage there is no indication of the number or condition of any remains which may be found at the site and the archaeology team still have a large task ahead to attempt to resolve these questions. While it is believed that the bodies are likely to be Australian and British soldiers, the nationalities have so far not been confirmed.
    At the end of day three of the dig, Warren Snowdon had confirmed that, in addition to the initial discovery of remains in Pit 5, the dig had also uncovered remains in Pits 1 and 2. He concluded that, despite these discoveries, the team could not confirm the presence of Diggers among the remains as none of the discoveries was distinctly Australian.
    He was even more buoyed when the next big step forward came at the start of the final week of the dig. The GUARD team found a heavily corroded but unmistakable Australian Army ‘Rising Sun’ collar badge – confirmation, at long last, of the presence of Diggers amongst the remains. In the words of Mike O’Brien, the find immediately transformed the site into ‘a place of national significance’. Later the same day, the team uncovered another ‘Rising Sun’ badge. Both were discovered in the chest cavities of skeletons, leading to suggestions that the soldiers may have placed the badges in their breast pockets prior to the battle.
    Towards the end of the dig, Tim Whitford was one of the last outside the GUARD team to again see the exposed remains before they were covered back over.
In Pits 4 and 5 it is a scene of abject horror. Men have been thrown in on top of each other without any care or reverence. There are men lying in grotesque positions. One man has been thrown in and is lying unnaturally against the side of the pit wall. Another has been hoiked in. These men are not at rest. If we leave them like that it is a travesty. And if anyone believes anything different they should come here, get off their chesterfields and come here.
    The sight of these remains changed Tim’s views on the next steps for the remains from a flexible preference for exhumation, identification and individual reburial to a position where he was absolutely convinced and deeply passionate that the men were not resting in peace and deserved nothing less than exhumation, identification and individual reburial.
    Tony Pollard was similarly affected:
You cannot have the moral wherewithal to look for these guys, find them, then see what condition they’re in and how they’ve been buried and then say, well that’s adequate, we know where they are.
    You would have to have the heart of most solid granite and I don’t care whether you’re religious or not – and I’m pretty a-religious – but I look into those pits and I think you boys deserve better than this!

    Three rifle volleys are fired as a gesture of remembrance during the Cemetery Dedication Ceremony, 19 July 2010 ( PHOTO COURTESY OF CWGC )
    Mike O’Brien