Unique tribute to Australia's war dead

Seven hundred men and women joined a remembrance walk to the CWGC’s Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery in France, where they formed a tribute captured from the sky.

The walk organised by the Rotary Club d’Amiens les Trois Vallées, and attended by representatives from the Australian Embassy to Paris, paid tribute to Australian soldiers who died during the First World War.

Culminating at the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, which commemorates more than 10,000 Australian servicemen who have no known grave, the men and women formed the words “do not forget Australia” at the foot of the memorial yesterday (Sunday).

The tribute was captured by a drone, and the photo will be used to create a postcard to mark the centenary of the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in April.

The memorial was constructed to commemorate all Australian soldiers who died in France and Belgium during the First World War, especially the more than 10,000 commemorated by name who have no known grave. The Australian servicemen named on the memorial died in the battlefields of the Somme, Arras, the German advance of 1918 and the Advance to Victory. The cemetery and memorial were both designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, and the memorial was unveiled by King George VI on 22 July 1938.