Soldiers, History Beckon Teacher

Illawarra Mercury

Friday May 25, 2007

By MICHELLE HOCTOR

ALBION Park's Michael Molkentin will join an archaeological dig in Belgium to recover the bodies of Australian soldiers lost on a World War I battlefield.

But the main objective of the expedition, which starts on July 30, will be to uncover the history of the Australian 3rd Division which was blooded at the Battle of Messines on June 7, 1917.

The battle was regarded as one of the great Allied successes against the Germans, but it came at a terrible cost with 24,500 deaths, 2500 of them Australian. Ten thousand soldiers are still unaccounted for, most of them German.

The expedition is being mounted by Britain's Ministry of Defence and Mr Molkentin will serve as an archival researcher, chosen specifically for his research of the 3rd Division.

As an Australian, he will also be called upon to witness the exhumation of the bodies of any Australian soldiers.

The 25-year-old, who teaches history at Shellharbour Anglican College, said the regiment trained on England's Salisbury Plain for five months, before being shipped across the English Channel and into battle.

The troops, which included British forces in one part of the line and a combined Australian-New Zealand force in the other, dug tunnels under the German trenches before planting 19 mines and detonating them.

"The German line was absolutely obliterated within half an hour, which is remarkable for the First World War," Mr Molkentin said.

"The instance of the Messines offers a picture of a professional military force using modern tactics and weapons like light machine guns and hand grenades."

© 2007 Illawarra Mercury

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