The Fromelles Missing: the tragic Pflaum family story
The Fromelles Missing: the tragic Pflaum family story For Theodor Pflaum (bottom centre), who fled from old Europe in 1869, Australia proved to be a land of limitless opportunities. Yet that changed at the war’s outbreak in 1914 when Theodor was forced to register as an alien at the local police station. Only after his sons Tab (left) Theo (right) and Ray (centre) enlisted in July 1915, did suspicions about the family’s German origins subside. Only a year later, Theo found himself sprinting across marshy paddocks in the ill-fated Fromelles feint on the Western Front near the Somme. Somewhere in the murk, Theo noticed a wounded man lying alongside a dugout. It was his younger brother Ray. ‘I ran down to him and was told he had got a piece of shrapnel in the stomach.’ Theo dragged Ray into the dugout to protect him from the bombardment. Theo leant over Ray and reassured him that he was safe. Ray seemed comfortable; however, every time Theo tried to move him, he was wracked with pai