Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Cecil Bruce Growden was born in Gladstone, South Australia, on 24th September 1883, the son of George and Lucy Growden. His parents were early colonists who came to South Australia from Cornwall in 1864. Cecil was one of ten children, five girls and five boys and was brought up on the family farm, Springdale, just out of the township of Gladstone. As well as learning farming, he also trained as a motor mechanic, the trade he was in when Britain formally declared war on Germany on 4th August 1914.
Cecil enlisted in the AIF on 14th May 1915, aged 31 years, and joined ‘E’ Coy base at Mitcham for basic training. He was enlisted in the 12th Battalion, 8th Reinforcements. (The battalion was formed the previous year in Tasmania on 15th August 1914). The Adelaide contingent, including Growden, embarked on the troopship (ex-P&O) Morea on 26th August 1915 and sailed for Egypt. On 11th December the 8th Reinforcements were transferred from the Australian and New Zealand advanced base at Alexandria to Mudros on the island of Lemnos, a British staging point for the Gallipoli campaign. In the meantime, the 12th Battalion had been withdrawn from the Gallipoli Peninsula to Lemnos for rest. Following the evacuation of the allied forces from Gallipoli on 20th December, the battalion returned to Egypt and disembarked at Alexandria from HMT Lake Michigan on 6th January 1916. Cecil Growden had mercifully avoided the allied disaster in the Dardanelles. He was promoted to Lance Corporal on 16th March 1916.
Following the Gallipoli campaign, the AIF was reorganised and expanded and its infantry divisions were transferred to France to the Western Front. On 29th March the 12th Battalion left Alexandria and sailed on the Corsican to join the British Expeditionary Force. Growden’s battalion disembarked at Marseilles on 5th April, and from there was deployed to the Somme as part of the AIF 1st Division.
On 23rd July the battle to capture the small French village of Pozieres began. The 1st Division attacked at 12.30am on two fronts, the 1st Infantry Brigade on the left and the 3rd Brigade, including Growden’s battalion to the right, successfully taking the village. The division clung on to its gains despite almost continuous artillery fire and repeated German counter attacks, but suffered heavy casualties. Two days later the Germans increased their bombing of Pozieres in an effort to retake the town, this time using chlorine shells and releasing canisters of poisonous chlorine or phosgene gas to create havoc and asphyxia amongst the defenders.
On 26th July the depleted 1st Division was relieved by the AIF’s 2nd Division, but by then things didn’t look good for Lance Corporal Growden. On 28th July he was reported to be suffering from ‘Gas and shell shock’ on his medical records. Then on 31st July his battalion reported that he had been evacuated to hospital, sick, in Amiens about 15 miles from the front. On the same day the 1st Australian Field Ambulance clarified that Growden was experiencing aphonia, or loss of voice due to a disruption in the larynx. Nursing staff at the No.1 New Zealand Stationary Hospital then diagnosed that the unfortunate soldier was suffering from ‘shell poisoning’. Growden was moved on 4th August further westward towards the coast to the 1st Australian General Hospital at Rouen, safely behind enemy lines and where serious battle casualties were treated. In need of longer-term treatment, it was decided he be transferred to England, so the Lance Corporal was taken to nearby Le Havre and embarked on the hospital ship Asturias on 14th August. On arrival in England he was conveyed to the Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington, Lancashire, where he was diagnosed as suffering from asphyxia, or tissue damage to the lungs. Fortunately, his condition improved there and he was subsequently transferred again the following month on 13th September to the No.1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Harefield, for recuperation. By the 19th September he was well enough to report to AIF No.1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, Wiltshire, and the following day was granted 16 days furlough to spend in the south of England. Growden reported back on 6th October and was classified as fit to return to his unit in France. On 3rd November he presented himself to the Infantry draft depot, Woolwich, SE London, an establishment where draftees were assembled for units serving overseas. A comment was made on Growden’s service records dated 24th November that he “Now feels quite all right”.
Cecil Growden was to spend his last Christmas enduring one of the coldest English winters on record in London, then in the new year, boarded the SS Victoria at Folkestone on 14th February for passage back across the Channel to France. There he made his way to the massive allied army base camp near the port of Etaples, and reported to the 1st Australian Divisional Base Depot there. This notorious camp on the French coast subjected its new and veteran soldiers alike to intensive training under dreadful conditions prior to their return to the front and was particularly unpopular. Growden remained there for three weeks before being taken off strength on 8th March and heading back to battle on the Western Front.
Lance Corporal Cecil Growden re-joined his unit, the 12th Battalion on 16th March 1917 after eight months absence recovering from his injuries. In the meantime, the battalion had been fighting at Ypres in Flanders, before returning to the Somme in November for the winter. There, its soldiers endured awful conditions in the trenches as Europe sustained its worst winter in 40 years.
Early in March, the German army withdrew to new defences christened the ‘Siegfried Line’ by the Australians, but more commonly known as the ‘Hindenburg Line’. As the British Expeditionary Forces closed in on the heavily fortified German line, General Sir Hubert Gough’s 5th Army, including the 1st Division, took part in the pursuit of the enemy as it retreated to defended ground. There the Australian 2nd Division’s 6th Brigade attacked the fortified village of Lagnicourt, just over three kilometres in front of the Hindenburg Line, and on 26th March was successful in securing it. The 1st Division’s four battalions, including Growden’s 12th, were assigned the defence of a dangerously long and thinly manned front stretching south of Bullecourt to an area between Lagnicourt and the German line. Growden, who was promoted to Corporal on 10th April, was placed in charge of a Section, 16 platoon, D company, and was positioned in an advanced post between the village and German line.
Observing the Australians’ slender hold on the six kilometre frontage that the 1st Division was responsible for, the local German commander, General Otto von Moser, launched a major German counter attack to seize seven villages in front of their line, including Lagnicourt. On 15th April he mobilised the German XIV Reserve Corps, including the elite Prussian Guard, with a strategy to drive back the Australian advanced posts, destroy supplies and artillery during the day and then retire back behind the Hindenburg defences. Attacking with 23 battalions from four divisions at 4.30am, the German forces quickly over-ran the heavily outnumbered outposts and managed to penetrate the Australian front line between the 17th and 12th battalions, occupying the village of Lagnicourt. After damaging several artillery pieces, the 5th Brigade (2nd Division) and 3rd Brigade (1st Division) vigorously drove back the attacking Germans from the village they had held for a mere two hours and recovered 21 guns that had been captured. Australian casualties from the battle amounted to 1,010, including 300 taken prisoner, whereas the enemy’s losses were 2,313, with 362 being prisoners.
In the confusion of the initial pre-dawn attack, where some 16,000 Germans descended on around 4,000 men assembled around Lagnicourt, it was difficult to identify what had happened to many individuals. Corporal Growden was reported ‘missing’ and it was noted on his records that he was “Killed in action” on 15th April 1917 in France. As testament to the ferocity of the Battle of Lagnicourt, three Victoria Crosses were awarded during the tough fighting in the series of engagements around the French village. The 12th Battalion subsequently returned to Belgium to participate in the offensive that became known as the Third Battle of Ypres.
In the months following Corporal Growden’s death, several enquiries were made by his mother Lucy Growden and sister Annie about the whereabouts of Cecil’s grave and any information about his demise. Sadly, his command was only able to suggest to Lucy (Cecil’s father had passed away several years prior to the war) that her son was probably buried somewhere in the vicinity of Lagnicourt.
However, shortly after the end of the war, a report appeared on the Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files, relating to a Corporal Cecil Bruce Growden, S/No. 2590 of the 12th Battalion. The ‘Informant’ was noted as Sgt L.B. Colreavy of the 12th Battalion. Leo Colreavy had joined the A.I.F from Perth and met Cecil on the island of Lemnos in November 1915 after the Gallipoli campaign. He saw Growden killed and said, in part, in his report;
“When the Germans attacked, Growden’s section fell back about 100 yards from their outpost to my post. Just after they got back whilst getting into our hastily prepared position he was hit by rifle fire from close quarters. He fell about fifteen yards from our position, but the Germans had also come up and we were bombing them and could not wait to see about Growden. We moved back from the position leaving him where he fell and were captured by Germans behind us and we were taken back another way. I cannot suggest anyone who would know more”.
As sad as Leo Colreavy’s report was, it had ultimately solved the mystery Growden’s final moments. The sergeant had mercifully survived the war, partly due, it would seem, to his capture and removal from combat by the Germans. But what happened to Cecil’s body remained unknown. Perhaps it was covered by the heavy shelling during the hasty German retreat back to their lines after their raid on the village. Or maybe it lies in one of the unmarked graves in the little Lagnicourt war cemetery, marked “Known only to God”?
Corporal Cecil Bruce Growden’s name is inscribed on panel 66 at the Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, where some 11,000 names of Australians ‘missing’ in action in France are recorded.
Growden was eligible for the 1914/18 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal and was entitled to the Memorial Scroll and Memorial Plaque.

Research by Dave Rickard
From National Archives service records
and AWM 12th Battalion history