'Bright and optimistic' soldier found a century later

Résumé détaillé

More than 10 families across Australia have this year found out what happened to their relatives in bloody battles and arrests during World War l.

For more than a century, the World War I lieutenant's family didn't know where he had died, assuming he had been put to rest in a lonely grave in Europe, or worse, unable to be buried.

Lieutenant Anderson survived major battles such as Pozieres, Mouquet Farm and Bullecourt before he was killed during the Battle of Menin Road, near Ypres, in 1917.

Photographs on his sister's shelf and his service records, including a handwritten note from his parents permitting him to join the Army, became almost sacred.

His great nephew, Defence Minister Richard Marles, was told this year that his relative had been formally identified as one of the Australian soldiers buried in Belgium following the bloody fight.

More than 20,000 Allied men died or were injured in that battle, including 5000 Australians.

"I have four kids - two sons, two daughters - who are a similar age to what he was. He was 23 when he died. There's a sense in which those who died in the First World War were young people whose lives were taken away from them," Mr Marles told AAP.

"We have the photos of him. His face is bright and optimistic and (has) a sense of what could have been."Amidst the horror that he would have unquestionably seen, there must have been also a sense of achievement and accomplishment about making a difference.

"That speaks to me in terms of my experience with those who wear our nation's uniform."

Mr Marles paused for some time, amidst media commitments, to think of the fallen man as he pinned a rose to his name on Remembrance Day.

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