Two Australian mates have been laid to rest together more than 100 years after they died side-by-side in a trench in World War I.
About 200 people attended the funeral of Australian Imperial Force soldiers Lance Corporal James Leonard Rolls and Private Hedley Roy MacBeth at the Queant Road Cemetery, near Buissy, in northern France on Monday afternoon
The pair died when the dugout in which they were sheltering took a direct hit from a German shell during the Second Battle of Bullecourt on May 3, 1917.
Lance Cpl Rolls left behind his wife Emily and two-year-old daughter Laura, while Pte MacBeth never returned to wife Bessie, nine-year-old daughter Mary and five-year-old son Robert.
Governor-General Peter Cosgrove said their bodies lay under the mud for years waiting to be discovered.
"Two diggers - dead but not alone," he said at the funeral.
"And so, season after season, year after year, they rested and waited.
"If there were ever brothers in arms it was them. Together in life, together in death."
The soldiers were uncovered by workers on a farm near Bullecourt on May 23, 2015, nearly 100 years after they were killed.
Three years of extensive DNA testing followed to find their families in Australia, many of whom attended Monday's funeral.
Robert MacBeth said it was unbelieveable to have his great-grandfather found after more than a century.
"It was something the family all talked about, him being lost and not coming back," he told AAP.
"I even told my kids the story. It's really just ... I still can't believe it."
Lance Cpl Rolls' grand-niece Irene Darby said putting the pair to rest with full military honours, including a 12-gun triple volley, was wonderful.
She was glad her grand-uncle was found when he was because many WWI soldiers did not get military funerals.
"A lot of these poor guys missed out," she said, looking at the white tombstones in the cemetery.
"We are very lucky we live in this day and age and we are able to do this."
Ms Darby said she was more than happy for Lance Cpl Rolls to remain in France, where he has been for over a century.
"He also was buried with his friend, so now they are side by side. We're very happy that that's happened," she said.
Lance Cpl Rolls and Pte MacBeth have been buried along with 2377 other Commonwealth soldiers at Queant Road Cemetery.
More than 10,700 Australian soldiers who died in France during the First World War still have no known grave.
