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From François Berthout

Pte 4475 Cecil Augustus Dean
45th Australian Infantry Battalion,
12th Brigade, 4th Australian Division
 
In the red fields of poppies of the Somme, stand tight and bathed in light the white graves of thousands of young men, of a whole generation who far from home but united on the sacred grounds of northern France served and fought together with pride, gathered in the camaraderie that nothing broke, neither bullets nor shells knew how to bend the bravery of these heroes who gave their youth and their lives on the battlefields of the great war and who, for their country and for France, for peace and freedom gave all they had in the mud of the trenches in which they stood with courage and loyalty until their last breath of life and which, without fear and with determination, went over the top alongside their comrades under the fire of the machine guns who fell, mowed down by the bullets through the barbed wire to preserve the humanity that the war tried to steal from them in the fury of the battles which stopped these heroes in the prime of their young lives and who still today, still stand proud and young in the fields of the Somme, in the white cities in which they found the peace and silence of lives forever engraved in marble whose names will live forever and over whom we will always watch with respect so that they will never be forgotten.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today for our tomorrow. I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 4475 Cecil Augustus Dean who fought in the 45th Australian Infantry Battalion, 12th Brigade, 4th Australian Division, and who was killed in action 106 years ago, on August 8, 1916 at the age of 22 during the Battle of the Somme.

Cecil Augustus Dean was born in 1894 in Moore Park, New South Wales, and was the son of Charles Augustus Dean, of Sandringham, New South Wales. Before the outbreak of the war, he worked as a commercial traveler and lived in Forest Road, Arncliffe, New South Wales.

Cecil enlisted on November 5, 1915 at Casula, New South Wales, in the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, 14th Reinforcement, and after a two-month training period, embarked with his unit from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A62 Wandilla on February 3, 1916 and sailed for Egypt.

On March 7, 1916, Cecil arrived in Egypt and was disembarked in Alexandria and at the end of the month,on March 31, was transferred and taken on strength in Tel-El-Kebir in the 45th Australian Infantry Battalion which was raised on March 2, whose the motto was "Quo Fata Vocant" (Whither Destinies Summon) under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Sydney Herring who formerly commanded the 13th Australian Infantry Battalion. On June 2, 1916, after having fought against the Ottoman forces for the defense of the Suez Canal, Cecil, alongside his comrades joined the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) in Alexandria and embarked on board "Kinfauns Castle" and proceeded overseas for France.

On June 8, 1916, after a short journey on the Mediterranean Sea, Cecil finally arrived in France and was disembarked in Marseilles then the next day, with the men of the 45th Battalion, embarked by train for Bailleul via Lyon, Vaise, Montargis, Abbeville and were billeted in many houses and farms and during their stay here were inspected by Generals Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, William Birdwood and by Douglas Haig then followed a period of rest and training including bayonet fights under particularly wet weather until the end of the month.

On July 2, 1916, Cecil and the 45th Battalion marched for Sailly-Sur-La-Lys (Pas-De-Calais) then on July 4, took the trenches to the left of Sailly where they relieved the 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion in trenches in "very poor condition" and were employed in their repair but also in the construction of new lines spaced between 250 and 375 yards from the German trenches. On July 11, the 45th Battalion was relieved by the 55th Australian Infantry Battalion and were billeted at Sailly-Sur-La-Lys, then at Bailleul on July 12 and the next day, orders were received for them to go to the Somme front.

On July 14, 1916, the men of the 45th Battalion, including Cecil, embarked by train at the Bailleul railway station and arrived a few hours later in the Somme, in the village of Doullens then marched to Berteaucourt-Les-Dames where they followed a period of training including marching routes, wood fighting and bayonet fighting then on July 27, moved to Rubempre where they were billeted until the morning of July 29, bivouacked at Vadencourt Wood until July 31, then on August 1 marched to the town of Albert and bivouacked at "Brickfields" and prepared to enter the front line in what was the deadliest offensive and battle for the entire Australian Imperial Force in the Somme , the hell of the battle of Pozieres.

In late July 1916, the Australians fought their first action in the Battle of the Somme. At this point the British strategy focused on the seizure of the ridge east of Pozières village from where an attack could be mounted on German strongholds further north at Thiepval which had not fallen to British attack on the opening day of the battle, 1 July 1916. By the time the Australians entered the Somme battle the operation had become a series of attacks aimed not so much at a break-through of the German lines as the capture of key positions and the wearing down of the enemy.

Between 23 July and 5 August 1916, the Australian 1st and 2nd Divisions captured Pozières village and Pozières heights, a ridge 500 metres east of the village. The initial attack began at 12.30 am on Sunday 23 July when the 1st Division seized the German front line and in the following hour reached the main road through Pozières. At dawn the Germans counter-attacked but the Australians held on. The rest of Pozières fell on the night of 23-24 July and further gains were made on the night of 24-25 July. The Germans reacted to the seizure of Pozières by concentrating the bulk of their artillery on the Australians. Constant barrages were directed onto the village and the narrow approaches creating a nightmarish situation for troops forming up and attacking in the dark. By 27 July, the 2nd Division had taken over in Pozières.

The 2nd Division was ordered to take Pozières heights. The attack commenced at 12.15 am on 29 July but the Germans were ready and the attack failed at a cost of 3,500 Australian casualties. The Australian commander of the 2nd Division asked that his men might attack again rather than be withdrawn after failure. Following an intense bombardment on 4 August 1916, the Australian seized Pozières heights. The exhausted 2nd Division was now rested and the 4th Division took up positions on the Pozières Heights. Attacking north along the ridge, the Australians in ten days of continuous action reached Mouquet Farm. The 4th Division was now relieved. The farm resisted capture until 26 September 1916, the day after the commenced of a major British offensive.

In less than seven weeks in the fighting at Pozières and Mouquet Farm three Australian divisions suffered 23,000 casualties. Of these, 6,800 men were killed or died of wounds. It was a loss comparable with the casualties sustained by the Australians over eight months at Gallipoli in 1915.

On August 3, 1916, Cecil and all the men of the 45th Battalion were fully equipped for the battle of Pozieres and the next day, marched through Albert to "Tara Hill" and there bivouacked on the ground formerly occupied by the 26th Australian Infantry Battalion then on 5 August, relieved the 17th, 18th and 19th Australian Infantry Battalion under a deluge of shells from a German artillery firing with precision at an unrelenting pace. Now for them hell began and fought bravely with the Yorkshire Regiment on their right and with the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion to their left.

On August 6, 1916, the German artillery launched a very heavy bombardment on the positions of the 45th Battalion and launched a weak counterattack which was repelled by the Australians who captured several prisoners during this action but lost 100 men then the same day, the battalion assisted the British in an attack on "Munster Alley", a successful operation in which the 45th captured 30 prisoners but that same evening came under heavy German artillery fire again.

On August 7, 1916, the Germans launched a weak counter attack towards the Australian lines and the 45th Battalion easily repelled them but lost 79 men. Unfortunately, it was the next day, when the 45th was relieved by the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion and went into support trenches and strong points that the German artillery went into action and that Cecil was killed in action by a shell which fell near him, he was 22 years old.

Sadly, Cecil's body was never found at first and his name was engraved on the walls of the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux but in 1936 his remains were discovered, he was identified thanks to his watch and he was buried with full military honors at Ovillers Military Cemetery, Somme,where he now rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms.

Cecil, it is with the greatest determination and with conviction that for your country, in this year 1915, you answered the call of duty while your comrades fought on the blood red beaches of Gallipoli and, deeply desirous of doing what was right, to be at their side to do your part on the battlefields of the great war took you a step forward to in your turn carry high and proud the colors of australia under the rising sun of your slouch hat , symbol of the young and strong Australian nation which fought with bravery alongside its brothers in arms overseas.Young but already so brave, it was with devotion that you followed your friends and brothers in arms to whom it was said that they were soon going to fight in France without knowing what hell awaited them and sailed, marched and moved forward towards the fields of mud and death of the Somme, a name which remained engraved as the synonym of the hell on earth that the young Diggers discovered in Pozieres when they joined the front line, on lunar grounds strewn with shell holes in which lay without lives the intermingled bodies of Australian and German soldiers who killed each other in bayonet charges and who were mowed down by bullets or who without weapons threw themselves on each other in the fury of the hand-to-hand fighting which resulted abominable bloodbaths that poisoned the water and the air with a smell of suffocating death even more murderous than the poisonous gases that burned the lungs and the souls of these young men who in these first Moments of war saw the horrors in which they were going to have to live and die behind the parapets, in the makeshift shelters that were in the trenches, the final frontier between life and death that lurked in the shadows for other waves of assault to be pulverized in the summer heat under which the world was consumed in flames and madness.In this nightmare, these men sacrificed their youth, they became at the age of 22 men, veterans who knew the price of life and rubbed shoulders with death day and night under the interminable bombardments of the enemy artillery which sent on them the messengers of death in the lugubrious and funereal symphonies of millions of shells which pulverized everything under their steel bites and which mutilated, devoured and buried alive thousands of men who were waiting to climb the wooden ladders to do their duty on the no man's land, land of despair where all humanity was relentlessly annihilated in the howls of guns that swept the front line at a infernal rhythm. Pounded, massacred by the madness of a war, these young men nevertheless remained strong and proud behind an invincible brotherhood in which they found the strength and the courage to fight and to stand ready behind their rifles and machine guns, this courage, this bravery bore a name, the ANZAC spirit, a spirit of camaraderie, gallantry, honor and sacrifice that drove them forward, side by side under shrapnel and flying bullets. In the Somme the Australians fought like lions and never backed down despite everything they endured and saw their comrades who fell so they threw themselves forward to avenge them because for them the friendship and camaraderie that united them was sacred, they were everything to each other, friends, comrades, family and did more than what was asked of them but the price was high and on the fields of Pozières soon stood thousands of wooden crosses, the ultimate memory of broken lives in the war but beyond the war, their memory has never ceased to be maintained and cherished by their families and by the French people who will always watch over the young Diggers who are today for me in my heart like my sons whom I love to call with the deepest affection and respect my boys of the Somme and for whom I would give my life so that they may be forever honored and remembered, so that their names live forever.Thank you so much Cecil, for everything. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him, we will remember them.