The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (2176) Private Oscar Herbert Hart, 4th Battalion, First World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Greg Kimball, the story for this day was on (2176) Private Oscar Herbert Hart, 4th Battalion, First World War.

2176 Private Oscar Herbert Hart, 4th Battalion
KIA 23 July 1916

Story delivered on 19 May 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Oscar Hart, who was killed in action while fighting in France during the First World War.

Oscar Hart was born in 1889, one of seven children born to Joseph and Sarah Hart of Wollongong, New South Wales. We know very little of Oscar’s formative years, other than that he lost his mother at the age of six and attended Wollongong Superior Public School. Following the death of his father, Oscar worked as a labourer on the New South Wales Government Railways and was an active member of the North Wollongong Surf Life Saving Club, where he was well-liked by many of its members.

Oscar enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in May 1915, and after a period of training at Liverpool, embarked with a reinforcement group for the 4th Battalion the following month, bound for the fighting in the Dardanelles. He joined the battalion on Gallipoli in early August, just three days before it went into action against the Ottoman Turks at Lone Pine. Almost immediately, Oscar was wounded in the head by Turkish shrapnel and evacuated to Egypt, where he spent the remainder of the year at the 1st Australian General Hospital at Heliopolis. There, he wrote a letter to his siblings describing in his first time in combat: “I have no fear in going back to the front,” he said. “[I’m] only sorry all my mates are gone. Out of 150 in my reinforcement [group], only 9 of us
answered our names at the roll call – the rest [are] either killed, wounded or missing.”

Oscar rejoined the battalion in Egypt, after the withdrawal from Gallipoli, and as the AIF prepared to embark for France and the fighting on the Western Front. The battalion disembarked at Marseilles in March 1916, and made their way north to the relatively quiet “nursery” sector outside the town of Armentières, where the Australians learned the rigours and routine of fighting in the new operational theatre. There, the 4th Battalion was involved in nightly patrols of no man’s land and conducting trench raids against the Germans, before the battalion was sent to the Somme in early July to participate in the major British offensive then underway there.

The 4th Battalion played a critical role in the capture of Pozières – a German-occupied village that dominated the high ground and impeded any further progress towards Thiepval. On the night of 22 July 1916, Australian troops of the 1st Division assaulted and captured Pozières, following an artillery bombardment that ranked among some of the most concentrated of the war. The infantry overwhelmed the German defences and tenaciously held their positions over the following days as the Germans began bombarding the Australians in their newly-won positions. By the time the 1st Division was relieved three days later, it had lost over 5,000 men killed, missing, and wounded.

Among the 4th Battalion’s dead was Oscar Hart, whose body was seen on the battlefield around midnight of 22 July. He was 27. Oscar’s body was never recovered from the Pozières battlefield, and as such, his name
is listed on the memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, among the 10,737 Australians killed in France who had no known grave.

The news of Oscar’s death devastated his brothers and sisters in Wollongong, as well as his workmates at the railway, his surf lifesaving club and those who fought with him on Gallipoli. On the anniversary of his death one year later, his family included the following epitaph which holds special significance for his Last Post Ceremony today:

His King and country called him The call was not in vain, On Australia’s Roll of Honour, You will find our dear brother’s name.

Oscar Hart is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Oscar Hart, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section