At 18, Fraser volunteered to help dig up and identify some of the 46,000 Australians who died on the western front. Now his stark 1919 diary has itself been dug up
Anonymous volunteers at the State Library of Queensland have transcribed Claude Fraser diary, offering a rare insight into the little-known service undertaken by Australian troops.Anonymous volunteers at the State Library of Queensland have transcribed Claude Fraser diary, offering a rare insight into the little-known service undertaken by Australian troops.It was September 1918 when a young Queenslander, Claude Fraser, left for England assigned to the 9th within the Royal Queensland Regiment.
“There’s nothing like a first-hand account of history,” the library’s Robyn Hamilton says. “It’s just so much more vivid when it’s expressed through the account of someone’s actual lived experience.In January 1919 a giddy Fraser went sightseeing in London for the first time and visited family in Edinburgh, before being sent to France.
In some cases, soldiers had time to make note of where they buried comrades, before the frontline shifted. Identity discs, coloured battalion patches and letters from loved ones stuffed in pockets offered clues for identification.Commenced work at 8.30am; started from V.Bx … seven bodies in one shell hell, bodies hardly decomposed, one of the boys found gold signet ring & half penny on one corpse.
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