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Lost photos of Aussie diggers revealed

It's hoped Australian families can help identify the unknown WWI soldiers who feature in many of the prints to go on display at a Sydney exhibition.

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Source: AAP


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Photos of Australian soldiers who fought during World War I that came close to being lost forever will go on display in Sydney.

The exhibition, Remember Me: Lost Diggers of Vignacourt, features 74 hand-printed photographic portraits.

They were donated to the Australian War Memorial from a wider collection of almost 4000 glass plate negatives taken by Louis and Antoinette Thuillier in the French town of Vignacourt during WWI.

The negatives were discovered in the attic of the couple's barn almost a century after they were taken.

It's hoped Australian families can help identify the unknown soldiers who feature in many of the prints, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell says.

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"The negatives capture Australian, British, French, American and Indian soldiers who used the small town as a recreation and recovery point for troops moving to-and-from the battlefields of the Somme," he said.

"It's incredible to think this photographic history was so close to being lost forever."

One portrait shows two unidentified Australian soldiers of the 1st Division wearing buckled sheepskin vests and bulky mittens to ward off the cold.

The smiling, standing soldier wears rubber over-pants.

A group portrait shows eight unidentified members of the 2nd Division holding a sign that reads "We want our Mumie".

Several of the soldiers wear identity bracelets in the shape of Australia.

Remember Me: Lost Diggers of Vignacourt will be on display at the State Library of NSW in Sydney from November 2014 until January 18 2015.


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