A Dubbo mother, who might have tucked her boy into bed countless times, never lived to know his final resting place on a French battleground, but more than 90 years on his family finally has answers.
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Dubbo born and raised Pte John Turner was one of 75 soldiers identified this week with the help of DNA technology after being killed in action at the Battle of Fromelles in 1916.
The long-forgotten engagement, the costliest in Australian military history, claimed the life of the fresh-faced 20-year-old, whose large family in Dubbo never stopped mourning him.
Almost 94 years after his death, his brother’s great-granddaughter has learned with relief that he was one of 250 soldiers buried by the German Army in Pheasant Wood and overlooked by Australian authorities after the war.
Kerrin Lee of Castle Hill said she had always known Pte Turner had died during the war.
Her great-grandfather, with whom she enjoyed a close relationship, would mention his younger brother when she was young, but it was “too sad”.
As an adult she began to research Robert James Turner and Celesta King who raised Pte Turner and his nine brothers and sisters in their Darling Street, Dubbo home.
It took a two-year search and recovery mission, kicked off by Victorian Lambis Englezos, to find Pte Turner and other Australian and British soldiers, but Ms Lee had faith it would be worth it.
“As soon as I saw on TV that they’d found the burial pit, I knew straight away, I said my uncle’s in one of those pits - I knew the Germans had taken him,” she said.
After the soldiers’ remains were found, a nephew and a great niece of Pte Turner both gave DNA samples for comparison.
Ms Lee was “speechless” when the army rang her on Tuesday to say Pte Turner had been identified.
To know for sure where he laid buried and for him to have a proper grave and headstone meant a lot to the Turner family, Ms Lee said.
The Turner family had already borne the loss of war, with eldest child James killed at Gallipoli, when news came that their fourth-born had been killed in France.