Folk ballad lyrics now mark a newly identified WWI soldier's grave
Lance-Corporal William Andrew Craigie's headstone bears lyrics from Eric Bogle's 1976 WWI ballad 'No Man's Land.'
Lance-Corporal William Andrew Craigie was an Australian infantryman who died at the Battle of Fromelles in France on 19 July 1916. About 2,000 Australians died in that battle.
Over 1,330 were never identified. He is buried at Pheasant Wood Military Cemetery.
His headstone has lyrics from Eric Bogle's 1976 folk ballad 'No Man's Land': 'The sun's shining down / On green fields of France / Warm wind blows gently / The red poppies dance.' The Commonwealth War Graves Commission usually bans things it sees as 'contentious' from headstones.
Approving lyrics from a 50-year-old song was rare. Pheasant Wood is the first new CWGC cemetery in five decades.
Why it mattersOver a century after his death, his burial finally closes an unfinished chapter of WWI history.
AustraliaHundreds of Australian families have waited over a century to learn where their WWI relatives were buried, these discoveries finally close that gap.
Corroborated byThe Sydney Morning Herald·WAtoday
✓ Claims checked against the source. checked 4 h ago
