Doesn't anyone think it's possible that France can be greatful, (hell they have memorials all over the place--if they didn't care, they wouldn't have built them
It seems not...
February 23, 2002, http://old.smh.com.au/news/0202/23/world/world25.html
A runway over our fallen soldiers
A planned French airport will cover Australia's war dead in tarmac and concrete, Paul Daley reports.
It has been labelled "the airport of shame", and when the bulldozers move in they will be digging into what could easily be considered a sacred site of Australian military history.
Vermandovilliers owes its survival to the Australian military. In the late summer of 1918 it suffered 6000 casualties in four days as Australian troops forced the German army back across the Somme's quagmire.
That sacrifice could not be more revered by the town. A sign on Vermandovilliers' town hall reminds that the Australian Army's Lawrence Dominic McCarthy won the Victoria Cross there on August 23, 1918, when he "single-handedly captured 460 metres of German trench line".
There can be little doubt that the Somme and the battles for Ypres, in Belgium, were as formative as Anzac Cove, even though they may not have etched themselves so deeply into Australia's psyche.
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The fight for Vermandovilliers played a critical part in the battle of Villers-Bretonneux, in which more than 12,000 Australians were killed. Many of the dead are buried in Commonwealth War Cemeteries, but thousands remain interred in the muddy earth under potato crops.
This site and those surrounding are sacred for all nations involved in World War I, but they could soon disappear under tarmac and concrete.
The developers of France's proposed new four-runway international airport and associated road systems want to build on a swathe of the Somme's battlefields, up to five war cemeteries and countless unmarked graves.
The airport, which will service 20 million commuters a year by 2015, is being presented as a fait accompli. It will, according to French Prime Minister-cum-presidential hopeful Lionel Jospin, definitely be built on the Somme - a flat expanse 90 kilometres from Paris, a 90-minute drive from Brussels and (eventually) a short train ride from Britain.
France has not publicly released any plans, and has informally signalled that while the runways and support buildings could be moved a few kilometres here or there, the project will go ahead.
This is not only bad news for Vermandovilliers, it also creates huge uncertainty for residents of other villages such as Belloy, Lihons, Chaulnes and Rosieres-en-Sainte. There are dozens of marked Australian and New Zealand graves at cemeteries in these towns, and 66 Australians are buried in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Rosieres.
Dozens more are buried in marked graves at communal Commonwealth war cemeteries at Chaulnes and in marked graves under anonymous headstones at a plethora of small cemeteries around the proposed airport site.
The movement of marked graves, the desecration of such important battlefields and the inevitability that thousands of unmarked graves will be built over, has prompted prominent French war historian Jean des Cars to label the project "the airport of shame".
"Will the [French] Government have the indecency to profane the rest and eternal peace of thousands of men to whom we owe our existence?" he asks.
The Herald has obtained a copy of the preliminary airport plans. They show that besides the airport proper, much of the land for kilometres around the massive construction has been rezoned to industrial.
This raises the prospect of the demolition of further towns and the relocation of many more war cemeteries to make way for airport infrastructure such as hotels and shopping centres.
The French Government has conceded that a small British cemetery at Rosieres (where there are six unidentified Commonwealth soldiers buried among 60 British) will have to be relocated.
It agrees that a French cemetery with more than 2000 graves and a German cemetery with 22,000 graves will also have to go.
British historian Paul Reed, who lives on a farm close to Vermandovilliers, conducts tours of the Western Front battlefields of Belgium and France. He believes the airport will "damage this place beyond recognition".
"It's the part of the battlefields that has the most Australian visitors, and the battlefields that will be built over are among the most historically important for Australia," he says.
"There is no doubt the airport site is littered with bodies, perhaps thousands of them, of all nationalities, from all over the Commonwealth, including potentially large numbers of Australians."
Mr Reed says that while British service groups and the British Government have vocally opposed the development and planned freeway extension across battlefields near Ypres, he has been surprised at Australia's inaction on the issue.
"There's a growing awareness in Australia about what's happening, although I don't know how much awareness compared to Britain," he says.
The French Government has assured Australia that no Australian cemeteries will be affected but the Federal Government is deeply concerned about the proposals.
A spokeswoman for the Assistant Defence Minister, Dana Vale, said the minister had asked the Office of Australian War Graves to "monitor the proposals closely to ensure she is aware of any impact on Australian war dead by future or associated developments".
The spokeswoman said there were "no Australians buried at the two locations [cemeteries] that may be affected".
But she also pointed out: "The battlefields themselves are the resting place of many who fell and have no known grave.
"If the remains of any Australian soldiers are uncovered from an unmarked grave or battlefield, we will ensure they are treated with all the sensitivity and reverence due to one of our fallen heroes."
