FROMELLES, France, May 4 (UPI) -- Archaeologists say they are prepared to remove the bodies of an estimated 400 Australian and British soldiers from a French mass grave.

The Daily Telegraph of London said Monday the exhumation scheduled to begin Tuesday near the French village of Fromelles will include up to 400 bodies buried by German forces following the Battle of Fromelles in 1916.


The Commonwealth War Graves Commission will supervise the exhumation of the bodies, which are being recovered on behalf of the Australian and British governments.

The mass grave near the French-Belgian border was located in 2008 during a limited excavation, the Telegraph said.

Casualty records will be used to identify the exhumed bodies when possible before the remains are buried in individual graves next year in a nearby Graves Commission cemetery.

The Telegraph said the French government, along with the owner of the land where the mass grave was located, are in full support of the relocation of the soldiers' remains.