Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fromelles Fallen - An ABC News Special Presentation

I have to admit, before I started on this project I had no idea at all what a Fromelles was.

A village in France? OK, if you say so.

First combat seen by Australian forces on the Western Front in WWI? Makes sense I guess.

A complete cock up that saw the death and injury of over 5500 Aussie troops, at a time when Australia only had a population of 5 million? Oh, really? Hmm. That's not good.

So as this project went on, and the reporter, Tim Leslie, shared his obvious enthusiasm for the subject, it was hard not to become more and more intrigued by this story.

The end result is "Fromelles Fallen." A combination of video interviews, photo galleries, a timeline of the battle and extracts from the diaries of participants, this has been hard work, but a great experience.

Kudos to Tim Leslie, Ben Spraggon, Tim Madden and Jim Whimpey for their hard work, and to Aaron and Rudy Fedrick and Peter Dunstan who agreed to do interviews for us and fill us in on what it's like to have a relative who just disappeared during wartime.

I hope you enjoy it.