The bronze 'Bullecourt Digger' stands in the Australian Memorial Park just outside Bullecourt, along the Rue des Australiens and along the side road to Reincourt-les-Cagnicourt. In April and May 1917, the AIF lost 10 000 soldiers, killed or wounded in the fields he gazes across. [DVA]

Helping his mother to see what the battlefield of Bullecourt in May 1917 looked like, Private John Ware wrote: 'if ever you saw a sheep camp in time of drought you will know how many sheep [die] in one night our men are lying about just the same'. Today at Bullecourt a statue, the 'Digger', stands in the Australian Memorial Park gazing out towards the enemy trenches which had cost so many Australian lives to capture. In the village, the story of the battles fought by Australians here in April and May 1917 is told in the Jean and Denise Letaille Museum.

Marked by some of the most intense trench fighting of the war, the two battles of Bullecourt (April and May 1917) cost Australia more than 10 000 casualties.

This is the Australian Memorial Park at Bullecourt.

It lies to the north-east of the village beside the appropriately named 'Rue des Australiens', street of the Australians, on the road to the neighbouring village of Riencourt-les-Cagnicourt. During both battles of Bullecourt in 1917 the park area was the scene of fierce fighting. Battle maps show this area between the two major defence lines of the German Hindenburg Line—OG1 and OG2. On 11 April 1917, the Germans mounted a counter-attack along OG1 to the back of the park from the direction of Bullecourt village against the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion holding a position further along the trench. Combined with a counter-attack from the other direction, the Australians were driven out and forced to withdraw. The park was officially opened on Anzac Day 1992 and the 'Digger' statue, which now forms the central feature of the area, was unveiled on Anzac Day the following year. It depicts a young Australian soldier in 1917 Australian Imperial Force uniform, the work of Australian artist Peter Corlett. He is wearing the Australian 'slouch hat' and carries his equipment—rifle, backpack with steel helmet, ammunition pouches, water bottle, gas mask, entrenching tool and bayonet.

Private Ware's letter to his mother—July 1917

Probably you have read of the fight for Bullycourt. Well I went there on the night it started and remained there five days and nights as well. And for the first forty-eight (48) hours done it on ½ a loaf of bread, no meat, one tin of beans and very little water but we were kept too busy to eat (even if we had it) but no water was a stunner as it was hot and dusty.

In the meanwhile I was amongst a party of twenty (20) men and one officer to go over the top at 10am and raid a trench that we required and we got it too, but were out numbered by three to one and had to go for dear life back to our own quarters, machine guns and rifles on us all the way. We then got orders at 1pm, same day to go back and take the trench and hold it which we did. It puts a nasty taste in a mans mouth (no matter who he is) when he has been driven out once and has to return to the same place.

Well the twenty (20) men went up again the second time. Not the same twenty (20) as we had two killed and seven wounded the first time, but we were closely followed by more of our men and out of the second twenty (20) only four of us came back unscratched, to say nothing of the others that followed, that was only one day or portion of it. And that is only a trifle compared with the big guns and smaller ones that play on our trenches (shell hole is a better name) all day and night.

[Extract from letter, Private John Ambrose Ware, 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion, France, to his mother, Ellen Ware, Lynrose Farm, Derringullen, New South Wales, 8 July 1917, AWM 1DRL, 595.]

Battle map: position of the 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion—4–6 May 1917

This hand drawn map is in the War Diary of the 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion for May 1917. It shows the trench position occupied by the men of the battalion to east of the village of Bullecourt between 4 and 5 May 1917 during the second Battle of Bullecourt. The battalion line forms the bottom of a triangle with the road running north-east from Bullecourt to Riencourt-les-Cagnicourt, and the road to the east running from Riencourt north-south across the fields. The fighting positions of the 3rd Battalions companies are marked – ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ – as is battalion headquarters with a flag in a circle symbol.

The positions lie directly over a section of the German OG2 line and above the OG1 line running parallel west to east. The map encloses the small area fought over by the Australians at both battles of Bullecourt – 11 April and 3 to 15 May 1917. In the south the railway embankment is seen to run from the west to the south-east below Bullecourt. [War Diary, 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion, 23/20/27, AWM4].

A modern Google satellite map overlay shows that this 1917 trench position lies just along the Bullecourt-Riencourt road (D956) from the Australian Memorial Park with its ‘Digger’ statue. [© Copyright Google Maps, 2013]

This view ranges across the slightly undulating countryside to the east of Bullecourt where the Australian Imperial Force fought the two battles of Bullecourt—11 April, and 3 to 16 May 1917.

To the left, lined with trees, is the old railway embankment leading north-west back to the village of Bullecourt. It was in what are now the ploughed fields in front of the embankment that the Australian infantry formed up for the attack on the German front line, the Hindenburg line, at the commencement of both battles. [A] marks the village of Bullecourt, at that time in German hands. At [B], a few hundred metres to the north-east of the village along the Rue des Australiens (the street of the Australians) leading to the village of Riencourt-les-Cagnicourt, is the Australian Memorial Park with the famous 'Digger' statue. Further along the road, at [C], is a memorial cross, dedicated to the Australian missing of the Bullecourt battles. This is where the old German front line—OG2—crossed the road and it is in the fields to the east that the 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion held the line against enemy counter attacks between 3 and 5 May 1917. The panorama extends to Riencourt at [D] and on across the Australian right flank during the two battles.

I have saw some sights that I would not write on paper but someday I may try and explain to you what it was like.

[Private John Ambrose Ware, 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion, in a letter dated 8 July 1917 to his mother, describing the Battle of Bullecourt on 3–4 May 1917, AWM 1DRL 595.]