Private Oscar Herbert Hart, 4th Battalion
Australian War MemorialOscar Hart was born in 1889, one of seven children born to Joseph and Sarah Hart of Wollongong, New South Wales. He lost his mother at the age of six. He attended Wollongong Superior Public School then worked as a labourer on the New South Wales Government Railways. He was an active member of the North Wollongong Surf Life Saving Club and well-liked in general.
Oscar enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in May 1915, and embarked with reinforcements to the 4th Battalion.
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: “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 the Western Front. In March 1916, they arrived in the “nursery” sector outside the town of Armentières, where the Australians learned the rigours and routine of fighting. The 4th Battalion undertook nightly patrols of no man’s land and trench raids against the Germans.
In early July, they were sent to the Somme. The 4th Battalion played a critical role in the capture of Pozières, a German-occupied village that dominated the high ground and blocked progress towards Thiepval.
On the night of 22 July 1916, Australian troops of the 1st Division assaulted and captured Pozières, following a highly concentrated artillery attack. The infantry overwhelmed the German defences and tenaciously held their positions over the following days as the Germans began a counter offensive. By the time the 1st Division was relieved three days later, over 5,000 Australians had been 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. His name is listed on the memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, among 10,737 Australians killed in France who have 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 other Gallipoli Anzacs.
On the anniversary of his death one year later, his family included the following epitaph:
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.
Aaron Pegram, Historian, Military History Section
- Australian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/AWM2017.1.139
