7News Exclusive reveals underground historical treasure trove
Seven’s special guest reporter Mark Donaldson VC found the names of thousands of WW1 soldiers carved and inscribed on the walls of a massive cave system at Naours, near Amiens, on the old Western Front battlefields.
The century-old graffiti is an incredible and unexpected legacy of the original Australian diggers who fought in France from 1916-18 as well as British, French, American and Canadian soldiers who also left their mark.
Since the 7News story and Yahoo7 report on March 29, dozens of media outlets around the world have followed up on what’s been dubbed a “secrets of the Somme”.
American television network NBC last night aired a report and here in Australia News Corp, Fairfax and SBS among others are now reporting the find.
Corporal Donaldson’s report has touched a national nerve in the ANZAC Centenary. Descendants of our diggers have contacted the network asking whether the grandfathers or great uncles were among the Australian names which dominate the cave walls.
Naours authorities are bracing themselves for a surge of Australian visitors who’ll now make the pilgrimage to explore a family and national legacy.
The caves themselves are an astounding maze of 300 rooms over three kilometres – a virtual medieval “underground city” including an underground chapel. Locals have used them since 3AD to hide from invaders.
In WW2 they were commandeered by the Nazi High Command but the caves echo mostly with the WW1 allies.
The diggers’ footsteps have long faded but their handiwork echoes down the decades, carved or pencilled in the soft chalk walls.
Soldiers from every state are represented, many marking their home town as well as their division, regiment or brigade.
For some of the diggers and international soldiers it was the last time they signed their names before being killed in horrendous battles like Pozieres, Fromelles, Passchendale and Villers Bretonneux.
The Australians were billeted at the nearby staging town Vignacourt and came to the caves between battles or while recuperating from wounds.
The 7News team visited the cave with representatives from the Australian embassy in Paris. They included Department of Veterans’ Affairs Anzac Centenary officer Jennifer Stephenson and military attaches Colonel Scott Clingan and Major Steve Ward.
French experts are continuing to record and research the names in a major ongoing project.
They are led by Dr Gilles Prilaux, an archaeologist from France’s national archaeology institute a co-author of the book “Great War Archaeology”. The team has been collating names and details since last July.
Mr Prilaux hit an historical goldmine when he discovered the name of one of Australia’s legendary explorers Leslie Russell Blake – then a young Lieutenant in the 5th Australian Field Artillery Brigade – carved on a wall. Blake was part of Douglas Mawson’s famous 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
He was the expedition cartographer and geologist and his brilliant surveying and mapping produced an accurate topographic map of Macquarie Island.
He won a Military Cross at Pozieres for his valour in charting the frontline under extreme machine gun and shellfire to give his general vital strategic information for that battle and the battle of Mouquet Farm. He was at Hill 60 and other major battles but tragically was killed only weeks before the end of the war.
Jenny Stephenson from the Department of Veterans Affairs was surprised to learn of the cave and their legacy.
"It's an interesting story in itself but then to come and discover that you've got these hidden little chambers with the names of so many Australians here,“ she said.
“Hidden away as a little secret in the Somme… I was absolutely moved by seeing so many Australians and thinking about their histories and the links back to Australia and Australian families.”
“These are actually the first Australian troops involved in the Western Front,” French historian Laurent Mirouze said.
“We know that a lot of them have been killed or injured, disappeared forever in Fromelles in all that terrible battles of 1916. So it's extremely moving to have these names of all these Diggers.
“What happened to them? What is their history? Maybe the historians now are going to find their fate,” he said.
Laurent himself has a long history of exploring Australian-French bonds.
Despatch rider Allan Allsop came to light in a major discovery of WW1 glass plate negatives found by Laurent and Channel Seven's Sunday Night program nearby.
Even though the Diggers' names have survived for nearly a century, there are serious concerns about their future. The chalk is soft and gradually wearing away. Specialist treatment is needed to seal and preserve the signatures.
“To find such testimony of French, of Australian Diggers fighting in France is extremely important for the French,” Laurent said.
“I'm sure that they are going to do the best to protect and save this historic graffiti for the public, for the general interest in both France and Australia as well as the other Allied nations.”
7News is proud to announce that Victoria Cross recipient Mark Donaldson will be part of our extensive coverage of the ANZAC Centenary with a special series of reports from the Western Front battlefields of World War One.
