Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of John Montague BLACK and Louisa nee UNDERWOOD of Goodwin Street, Toowoomba, Qld.
 
The connection between Cecil Black and the Mount Gravatt district is at first difficult to determine. On the Roll of Honour, he is listed as M. Black; which perhaps indicates that he was known by his middle name or more likely Monty.
 
His sister Edith, when completing the official Roll of Honour circular from the Australian War Memorial reported that Monty had attended the Mount Gravatt and South Brisbane Schools. On his attestation papers, Monty stated that he had been born in Harrisville, Toowoomba and that his occupation was that of a drover. His job took him around the state as is indicated by the fact that he enlisted on 14th October 1915 in Rockhampton. He was 32 years old and single.
 
After enlisting in Rockhampton, he probably travelled to Brisbane by sea, there being no rail link between the two cities at the time, and eventually was posted to a training battalion at the Enoggera Army Camp. After a period of training Monty was drafted into the 9th Battalion as a reinforcement. It is a mystery as to why a man with such equine experience as Monty had, was not drafted into the Light Horse or the Field Artillery but perhaps the need to reinforce infantry battalions already on the western front was the greater need. The 9thbattalion was one of the original Queensland battalions raised as part of the 1st Division of the AIF soon after recruitment began in late August 1914, and as part of the 3rd Brigade was first ashore at Gallipoli.
 
Monty and other reinforcements embarked in Sydney on 31st March 1916 bound for Egypt. After the evacuation of Gallipoli in December 1915, the original ANZAC Battalions were split to form the nucleus of two new battalions, thus doubling the size of the AIF before being deployed on the Western Front. On arrival in Egypt, Monty was transferred to the newly formed 49th Battalion (a sister battalion to the 9th and shared the same battalion colours of dark and light blue). As a reinforcement for the 49th, Monty was shipped by sea to Marseilles and then by train to the huge British training base at Etaples (known as the Bullring) on the French coast near Havre; arriving at Etaples on 24th June 1916. Finally on 13th August, Monty was taken on strength by the 49th Battalion which was in a rest area behind the line near Pozieres.
 
The Australian Divisions in France continued to attack strongly held German positions along the Somme for the remainder of 1916. As winter approached, incessant rain turned the battlefields into quagmires. While holding the frontline trenches at Flers, Monty Black was killed by the detonation of an enemy artillery shell. He had been with his battalion just over three months.
 
A Red Cross Wounded and Missing Report quotes a number of witnesses who stated that Monty was killed instantly and that his mates buried him in a marked grave behind the front line. Such reports have to be seen in the context of which they were obtained. The reports were usually instigated by family members in Australia seeking information on how their loved one died. Witnesses who were interviewed, perhaps in wishing to cause limited grief to the bereaved, often stated that a man was killed instantly (even if this was not the case) and that he had been buried by his mates. Sadly, the ground in which Monty was buried, if he ever had been, would be fought over several times as the battles raged to and fro across the Somme up to November 1918. When the Imperial War Graves Commission began consolidating individual graves into war cemeteries at the war’s end; all trace of the grave of Monty Black had been erased. Instead, Monty is commemorated along with another 11,000 Australians killed in France with no known grave on the panels of the National War Memorial at Villers Bretonneux.
 
Monty’s father was informed by telegram that his son had been killed. His father wrote to Base Records seeking more information, curiously in which country he had been killed and in which city he had enlisted. Mr Black also advised that his address had changed from Toowoomba to Sandgate. Tragedy would continue to stalk the family, as in 1918, Monty’s sister, Edith wrote to Base Records informing the authorities that Monty’s father was now deceased, and since their mother had already died in 1904, the eldest relative was now Monty’s brother Albert Dixon Black of Oakey.
 
 According to the rules established by the British Military, campaign medals would be issued to surviving relatives in a strict order which meant that Albert received his late brother’s British Empire Medal and Victory medal as well as a memorial plaque; often referred to as a “dead man’s penny” and a memorial scroll signed by the King. The final piece of correspondence in 1922 was written by Edith Black to inform base records that her elder sister, Louisa had died and that she was now the official next of kin (notwithstanding that Albert was still alive). She enclosed a statutory declaration to that effect and although she was living at Gladstone Road, Coorparoo gave a return address of a firm of solicitors in Queen Street. It is probable that Edith was responsible for the inclusion of Monty’s name on the Mount Gravatt Roll. She also completed the national Roll of Honour circular.