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".