HE DIED
FOR THE GREATEST CAUSE
IN HISTORY
EVER REMEMBERED

MAJOR BENJAMIN BENNETT LEANE

AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY

10TH APRIL 1917 AGE 27

BURIED: QUEANT ROAD CEMETERY, OAS DE CALAIS, FRANCE


This is horrible - you've read of men being blown to pieces by a shell but people don't usually give the details. Major Leane's wife must have instituted a Red Cross enquiry - I hope they didn't tell her everything. I have pieced together the evidence of a number of witnesses:

"I saw Major Leane blown to pieces. I saw his head and pieces of his shoulder." "A shell took him square and blew him to pieces." "A whizz-bang hit him and blew him to pieces. The only thing we could find was his head and a leg." "I searched for his body and eventually found his head and face almost uninjured." "His brother, Colonel Leane, went out and collected the remains." "His brother picked up his head and what was left of him and buried it somewhere I think behind the line." "His brother recognised his head and buried him himself."

The death of Major Benjamin Bennett Leane who died "for the greatest cause in history".