Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Marianne van Velzen, Allen & Unwin, $32.99.
This book is subtitled ‘Australia’s World War I Grave Services, an astonishing story of misconduct, fraud and hoaxing’. No one appeared to have responsibility for recording numbers of bodies and maintaining the hasty graves on the fields during the Great War.
“Poor leadership, mismanagement, quarrels, distrust and accusations of hoaxing” … this is the story of what happened after the guns were laid down and Australians tried to find their war dead.
“Quarrels, insinuations, distrust and suspiciousness among the men led to an inquiry in France; after a grave turned up empty, accusations of hoaxing led to another inquiry in London. This is the story of what happened.”
Missing in Action serves as an important reminder that the devastation of Australia’s involvement in World War I did not finish with the ceasefire agreement – Armistice.
By the end of World War I, 45,000 Australians had died on the Western Front. Some bodies had been hastily buried mid-battle in massed graves; others were mutilated beyond recognition. Often men were simply listed as ‘Missing in Action’ because nobody knew for sure.
Lieutenant Robert Burns was one of the missing, and now that the guns had fallen silent his father wanted to know what had become of his son. He wasn’t the only one looking for answers. A loud clamour arose from Australia for information and the need for the dead to be buried respectfully.
In the end there was a great scandal, with allegations of ‘body hoaxing’ and gross misappropriation of money and army possessions leading to two highly secretive inquiries.
According to Marianne van Velzen, who was born in the Netherlands and grew up in Australia, there are 11,000 Australians whose remains are still to be identified.
Not recounted until now, Missing in Action has ‘value as a case study in bureaucratic corruption and incompetence caused by lack of proper oversight’. “The utter scale of the slaughter made the war casualties significantly visible. The task of finding and reburying the dead was deeply flawed.”
It’s evident that meticulous research has gone into writing Missing in Action, the undeniable and unpredicted story of gloomy days and caliginous deeds.
