The remains of five men, believed to be Australian soldiers killed during World War I, are among the best preserved ever found on the Western Front, two experts familiar with the exhumation have claimed.
A geologist and co-secretary of the All Party War Graves and Battlefield Heritage Group for the British Parliament, Professor Peter Doyle, said the men were wrapped in groundsheets and bound in wire before being buried, probably by their colleagues, who may have hoped to re-inter them at a later date.

Professor Doyle said that while he had not been personally involved in the operation, his colleagues in Belgium had informed him of the details of the find.


"As far as I am informed, these men were wrapped in the groundsheet and the groundsheet kept on the bodies by the wrapping of wire," he said. "So the intention, I would think, would be to create a sort of shroud and preserve the bodies until they could be re-interred at a later date - that's the implication that has been given to me."

As reported in The Canberra Times on Wednesday, five bodies were uncovered at Zonnebeke, Belgium, during the construction of a gas pipeline in early September.