Aaron Hubert Cecil Hart was born on 24 July 1893 in Bathurst, NSW, to Rachel (née Pyke) and Bernard Hart of Lithgow. ‘Cecil’ attended Lithgow District School, trained in Electrical Engineering, then worked as a clerk. He also served in the Senior Cadets, attaining the rank of Captain.

On 11 August 1914, a week after war was declared, he joined the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Forces, aged 21: Corporal Cecil Hart. They embarked from Sydney (see attached) on 11 September aboard HMAT Berrima for German New Guinea and quickly achieved the surrender of Rabaul. Cecil returned to Sydney and was discharged on 4 March 1915. One month later, he enlisted in the AIF’s 3rd Reinforcement of 18th Battalion: No. 1943 and was appointed Acting Sergeant in July when he also became engaged to his second cousin, Rachel (Ray) Amelia Pyke. Cecil embarked on 9 August for Egypt, joining the battalion’s main body at Gallipoli on 11 October with the 5th Brigade. They were responsible for defending Courtney’s Post and evacuated in December 1915.

Re-formed as part of the new 2nd Australian Division, the 5th Brigade sailed to Marseilles in March 1916 and relocated to the Somme. The 1st Division captured Pozières on 23 July. Witnesses from the 18th Bn reported later to the Red Cross: “[On 26 July] we were in the front line in the Village of Pozieres and were being very heavily shelled and losing a fair percentage of men. / Sgt. Hart and I were going around with a tea dixie. / [At about 11 a.m.] he and I were talking to one another when a heavy shell burst in the trench alongside us, it knocked me unconscious and when I came to, about one-and-half hours later, I was in the Dressing Station. / A piece of the shell had caught him in the back of the head and killed him. / Sgt. Hart was buried near the trench where he fell … marked by a small wooden cross … All round this position, the Huns kept a heavy incessant artillery barrage, for at least a week following. Our trenches were blown clean off the map and had to be evacuated.”

September’s Hebrew Standard reported: “The sad news was received last week by Mr and Mrs Bernard Hart that their only son, Cecil, had been killed in action at Pozieres, France, on July 26th (two days after his 23rd birthday.) … The young soldier was betrothed to Miss Ray A. Pyke, daughter of Mr and Mrs George Pyke.” As he has no known grave, Sergeant Cecil Hubert Aaron Hart’s name is engraved on the 18th Battalion Panel, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Picardie, France.

Eighteen years later, Cecil’s fiancée Ray (now Mrs R. A. Bragg) wrote to the Defence Department in 1934 seeking details of his grave and cemetery. In 1965, Ray wrote again, concerned that Cecil’s rank was incorrectly recorded as a Private, “as I feel it is my duty to do this out of loyalty to my beloved fiancée” – 50 years since he had proposed. Ray passed away on 4 July 1978 aged 83 - 62 years after her adored cousin and perpetual soldier-sweetheart, Cecil Hart, had died.

Born in Bathurst, NSW, 24 July 1893, to Rachel (née Pyke) and Bernard Hart of Lithgow, Aaron Hubert Cecil Hart called himself ‘Cecil’. He attended Lithgow District School, trained in Electrical Engineering, then worked as a clerk for Oakey Park Colliery and for Metters Ltd., also serving in the Senior Cadets in Lithgow and Woollahra, attaining the rank of Captain.

A week after Britain - and Australia - declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, he joined the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Forces (ANMEF): No. 310 Private Cecil Hart. Age 21, he was promoted Corporal in C Company the following week and embarked from Sydney (see attached) on 11 September aboard HMAT A35 Berrima, with HMA Ships Australia, Sydney, Encounter, Warrego, Yarra, Parramatta and submarines AE1 and AE2, sent to secure Germany’s south Pacific territories and harbours. Rabaul on New Britain was occupied, unopposed, by ANMEF troops and shortly after, the German administration surrendered on 17 September. In the following months Australian vessels and troops were dispatched to the New Guinea mainland, New Ireland, the Admiralty Islands, the Western Islands, Bougainville and the German Solomons. Cecil returned to Sydney and was discharged on 4 March 1915.

Soon after, on 3 April, he enlisted in the AIF at Liverpool, NSW, in the 3rd Reinforcement of 18th Battalion: No. 1943. He was appointed Acting Sergeant Cecil Hart in July – also becoming engaged to (his second cousin and mother’s homonym) Rachel (Ray) Amelia Pyke in the same month. He embarked aboard HMAT Runic on 9 August for Egypt, joining the battalion’s main body with the 5th Brigade at Gallipoli on 11 October, when he was also promoted from Corporal to Sergeant in B Company. They were responsible for defending Courtney’s Post and evacuated in December 1915.

Re-formed as part of the new 2nd Australian Division, the 18th Battalion sailed to Marseilles in March 1916 and travelled north through France to a ‘nursery sector’ of the Western Front, Bois Grenier, near the Belgian border, before relocating south to the Somme, where it was to take part in its first major battle: at Pozières. The village had been captured initially by the 1st Division on 23 July 1916. They clung to its gains despite almost continuous artillery fire and repeated German counterattacks but suffered heavily. By the time it was fully relieved by the 2nd Division on 27 July, it had suffered 5,285 casualties.

As C. W. Bean wrote in his Official History of the War: ‘It is now known that the enemy had adopted a plan seldom if ever afterwards applied in the experience of Australian troops - that of laying down a day-long barrage, not in preparation for any intended offensive, but simply with the object of inflicting damage and loss. The bombardment of July 24 and 25 were intended to make the village “sturmreif” (ready for assault); but, after the utter failure of the attempted assault on the afternoon of July 25, it was decided not to attack again, but to bombard Pozières and its approaches throughout the 26th, the special feature of the operation, however, being a sudden synchronised crash by the artillery of three divisions after an interval of silence. This appears to have occurred shortly after 5 p.m., the concentration of fire lasting for half-an-hour. The strain of this almost incessant fire from 7 in the morning until 11 at night was probably the heaviest yet placed on Australian troops; but the supreme test - that of being called upon to face an attack after such a bombardment – had not yet come, and the probable conduct of the troops in that contingency was still unascertained.’

Witnesses reported to the Red Cross some months later, “[On 26 July] we were in the front line in the Village of Pozieres and were being very heavily shelled and losing a fair percentage of men. / [Cecil Hart] and I were going around [Tramway Sap] with a tea dixie. / [At about 11 a.m.] Sergt. Hart and I were talking to one another when a heavy shell burst in the trench alongside us, it knocked me unconscious and when I came to, about one-and-half hours later, I was in the Dressing Station. / A piece of the shell had caught him in the back of the head and killed him. / Sergt. Hart was buried near the trench where he fell … marked by a small wooden cross … All round this position, the Huns kept a heavy incessant artillery barrage, for at least a week following. Our trenches were blown clean off the map and had to be evacuated.” Lt. Nicholas H. Hobbs, who had been with Cecil since August 1914 in New Guinea and was wounded then awarded a Military Cross at Pozières, noted: “There was scarcely a square yard within at least 100 yards radius of the grave that was not churned up by shellfire, so it would be very difficult, if not impossible to find any trace of the grave now … Personally, I felt his death almost as much as it had been my own brother.”

The 2nd Division mounted two further attacks - the first, on 29 July, was a costly failure; the second, on 2 August, resulted in the seizure of more German positions beyond the village. Again, the Australians suffered heavily from retaliatory bombardments. They were relieved on 6 August, having received even more casualties: 6,848.

On 22 September 1916, the Hebrew Standard of Australasia reported: “The sad news was received last week by Mr and Mrs Bernard Hart that their only son, Cecil, had been killed in action at Pozieres, France, on July 26th (two days after his twenty-third birthday.) … The young soldier was betrothed to Miss Ray A. Pyke, daughter of Mr and Mrs George Pyke, now residing at Mercedes, Bayswater Road, Sydney.”

Promoted to Captain, Nicholas Hobbs - wounded at Bullecourt and repatriated in November 1917 - advised the Red Cross from No. 4 Australian General Hospital, Randwick, that he had written to Cecil Hart’s mother and seen his fiancée since returning. As he has no known grave, Sergeant Cecil Hubert Aaron Hart’s name is engraved on the 18th Battalion Panel, Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, Picardie, France.

In 1922, Cecil’s former fiancée, Ray, married Harry H. Bragg and bore their daughter in 1924. As Mrs R. A. Bragg – and “sister of Colonel C. A. Pyke, DAAG [Deputy Assistant Adjutant General] to General Monash” - she wrote to the Defence Department in 1934 seeking information about the details of Cecil Hart’s grave and cemetery, unaware that he had no known grave. Another 31 years later in 1965, Ray wrote again to Victoria Barracks, concerned that she may have seen Cecil’s rank incorrectly recorded as a Private, “as I feel it is my duty to do this out of loyalty to my beloved fiancée” – 50 years since he had proposed – explaining: “He and another NCO were chosen from the whole Brigade to attend an Officer’s School in an old Monastery in France and the day he was killed, I am told, was to have been commissioned;” also pointing to a reference to Sergeant Cecil Hart in C. W. Bean’s Official History of the War.

Ray Bragg passed away age 83, on 4 July 1978 - 62 years after her adored cousin and perpetual soldier-sweetheart, Cecil Hart, had died.