Virtual
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Australia

Son of Silas and Janey Harding, of Glenharding, Harlin, Queensland.

Mentioned in Despatches

Has done excellent services particularly in command of the 12th Battery during operations near Luisenhoff Farm on Grid North, where he carried out valuable reconnaissance for observation posts under heavy fire.
Recommendation date: 4 March 1917

HARDING Herbert George  Lieutenant                      4th Field Artillery Brigade
 
Bert Harding was born at Gympie on 10th August 1882 to parents Silas and Janey Harding. He was the eldest of three boys. Bert may have attended school in Gympie before the family moved to “Glenharding” at Harlin, north of Toogoolawah. Bert joined the Australian Field Artillery militia around 1903 and resigned in 1913 with the rank of lieutenant. He also studied for and passed the entrance examination for the Commonwealth Public Service, after which he presumably moved to Brisbane where the Commonwealth offices were located.
 
Bert completed an application for an officer’s commission on 23rd September 1915. He stated his age as 33 years and gave his occupation as clerk. Bert named his mother of Harlin as his next of kin. Bert’s application was accepted on 30th September with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. He travelled to Melbourne where the 4th Field Artillery Brigade was being raised and trained. On 18th November, the 4th FAB embarked on the “Wiltshire” for a voyage to Egypt, disembarking at Suez on 12th December 1915. The brigade proceeded to Heliopolis on the outskirts of Cairo.
 
From December 1915 to April 1916, a possible Ottoman threat loomed in the Sinai Peninsula, east of the Suez Canal. The 4th FAB were posted to the Canal defences to meet any Turkish attack. At the end of February, the brigade was withdrawn from the Canal Zone to prepare for deployment to France and the Western Front. On 1st March, Bert was promoted to Lieutenant and on 14th March, embarked on the “Minneapolis” at Alexandria, bound for Marseilles with the rest of the brigade. Once on French soil, the gunners proceeded to Havre (Le Havre) where they would take possession of new 18 pounders and 5.4” howitzers. There were also horse teams and wagons to collect.
 
The 4th FAB consisted of four batteries, three of which were 18 pounders, and one battery of Howitzers. Each battery was made up of six guns giving a total of 24 guns. A battery was under the command of a lieutenant and Bert was assigned to the 12th Battery. The guns were hauled by a team of six horses, hitched in pairs, with a driver riding the left hand horse in each pair. The team was hitched to a limber (a two wheeled wagon which contained ammunition) which was in turn was hitched to the gun. This arrangement was designed to allow for rapid deployment of a gun on the battlefield but in practice, almost all artillery fired from fixed positions for up to a month at a time.
 
Having collected and organised its equipment, the brigade proceeded to the Armentieres sector of the Western Front to begin supporting AIF battalions of the 2nd Division which had recently arrived in France. In July, the brigade embarked on a long march south from the region of the French Belgian border to the Somme battlefield. The first involvement of the 2nd Division AIF was at Pozieres and the 4th FAB established gun lines in Sausage Valley from which the gunners could fire. The tactics of the time established that an artillery barrage precede the infantry assault and be aimed at the enemy wire to destroy it. This proved to be quite ineffective and attacking troops would often be caught up the enemy’s wire, for which they blamed the gunners. This was an unfair criticism as no one had come up with the type of artillery shell that could accomplish the task.
 
The 2nd Division was withdrawn from the Somme in September and the gunners of the 4th FAB also received a reprieve from some exhausting work. The Australians boarded trains at Doullens for the 150 kilometre journey to Poperinghe, to the west of Ypres in Belgian Flanders. In November, the AIF was sent back to the Somme where the frontline had advanced only a few kilometres from Pozieres. The British advance had stalled short of the town of Bapaume and General Haig’s men were stuck in the mud while the Germans enjoyed an advantage occupying the high ground. In an attempt to get out of the mud, 4th FAB was to support an infantry attack by a small Australian force at Flers on 5thNovember 1916. Two battalions from the 2nd Division, which were to spearhead the attack, were hopelessly delayed by the mud in the saps leading to the front line. The attack went ahead but as was the usual story on the Somme, failed to gain the objective. For the first time, the gunners of the 4th FAB in support of the 2nd Division infantry were targeted by German counter battery fire resulting in 5 men killed and 32 wounded. The commanders of the two tardy battalions were blamed for the failure and both were sacked.
 
With the approach of winter, the conditions on the ground prevented any major offensive operation and the troops of both sides huddled in greatcoats fighting the cold. Bert was granted a leave pass for England in the first two weeks of December. His return to his unit was delayed by a short stay in hospital, probably influenza. On 7th February 1917, Bert was appointed brigade adjutant and relinquished his role of battery commander to attend to the administration of the brigade’s affairs. The brigade war diary from that time on was written by Bert. As spring brought a thawing of the roads and tracks, forward posts of front-line units reported that the Germans were no longer occupying their trenches. In the lull in fighting of the previous winter, the Germans had constructed a 150-kilometre defensive barrier, which they named the Seigfreid Position but the British called it the Hindenburg Line, some distance to the east of their previous positions astride the Somme. As the German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position, the British forces cautiously followed, taking the towns of Bapaume and Noreuil along the way. By the first week in April, elements of the 5th British Army under General Gough, which included two Australian divisions, came up against the Hindenburg defences at Bullecourt. Bert was recommended for a “Mention in Despatches” around this time, commending his work as artillery spotter during the Somme campaign.
 
Gough’s plan of attack followed the usual practice beginning with days of artillery bombardment to hopefully cut the several bands of barbed wire, followed by an infantry assault supported by a creeping artillery barrage. The 4th FAB had moved up to the gunlines on 4th April to take part in the artillery barrages that preceded the attack planned for the 11th April. At 4:05 pm on 10th April 1917, a German shell fired from one of the big guns fell on the Headquarters of the 4th FAB smashing the dugout and killing all the occupants.
 
Killed were the Brigade Commander Lt Col Watts, the Brigade Medical Officer Captain Mack and two lieutenants, Davenport and Bert Harding, aged 34. Bert’s body was conveyed to a small cemetery at Vaulx where temporary crosses were erected. At the end of the war, the Cemetery was expanded to contain a number of graves from smaller cemeteries nearby and permanent headstones of Portland Marble erected.
 
Bert had bequeathed his estate to his mother at “Glenharding”, who also signed for several trunks and packages containing her son’s uniform and personal items. Bert’s younger brothers, Frank Leonard and Frederick Elias were also commissioned as officers during the war. Both returned to Australia when hostilities ceased.