Unknown Australian soldiers identified decades after deaths in action

A lot separates the stories of two Australian soldiers who died two decades apart in wars on opposite sides of the world, but there are some remarkable parallels.

Both were killed in action on the same date and both lay in graves marked “Unknown Australian”, their families never knowing what became of them.

Now the men have been identified, one more than a century after he was killed.

Private Archibald “Blue” Hanley of the 30th Battalion was killed in the Battle of Amiens near Villers-Bretonnux in France on August 8, 1918.

For more than a century he lay unidentified in the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery.

Twenty-four years later, Lieutenant Hercules William Crawford of the 39th Battalion, Citizens Military Forces, was killed during the Battle of Kokoda in Papua New Guinea.

He went missing on the Kokoda Track near Pirivi on August 8, 1942 and was buried at the Bomana War Cemetery.

The identities of the men were confirmed after extensive investigations by the Australian Army’s Unrecovered War Casualties team, in consultation with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Office of Australian War Graves.

“When we say, ‘Lest We Forget’ at the end of the Ode we re-commit to remembering them in perpetuity,” Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh said in a statement.

“The formal identification of Private Archibald Hanley and Lieutenant Hercules William Crawford reflects our enduring commitment to accounting for Australia’s wartime missing, no matter how much time has passed.”

Headstones bearing the names, ranks and unit details of the soldiers will be installed at their graves.

Chief of Army Lieutenant General Susan Coyle said the identification of the soldiers provided long-awaited answers to their families.

“[This] demonstrates that time does not diminish our determination to account for our missing and ensure their service and sacrifice are properly commemorated,” she said.