Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Ballarat & District in the Great War

As the Spanish 'flu epidemic swept Europe in the wake of World War I, thousands of Australian soldiers sat waiting for transport home. Joe Sampson was one of those caught up in this final disastrous whirl of death.

The only son of Joseph Sampson and Elizabeth Jane Rowe, Joseph was born at Ballarat East in March 1897. Living at 11 Chamberlain Street, Joe was a completed his education at the nearby Queen Street State School.

He grew into a darkly handsome young man with black hair and brown eyes. Working as a bootmaker and taking part in senior cadets, Joe was just 18 years and 4 months of age when he enlisted on 20 July 1915 - and only 5 foot 2½ inches tall! Considering the height requirements had initially been 5 foot six inches it was amazing that he passed the examination.

Attached to the 14th reinforcements to the 8th Battalion, Joe sailed from Melbourne on board the HMAT 'Themistocles', landing at Colombo on 12 February 1916. Writing home to his parents, he described being taken ashore on coal barges and feasting on coconuts and pineapples. In a previous letter he laughed off his appearance after having fallen from gymnastic rings on board ship. This bit of skylarking cost him the skin off his nose and face.

Joe arrived in Suez on 28 February 1916 and a month later he was transferred to the 58th Battalion.

On 31 May 1916 Joe was to suffer the first of a series of illnesses. Laid low with tonsillitis, he spent over a week out of action.

He remained with the 58th until 14 January 1917 when he was detached for duty as a batman and sent to the 1st ANZAC Corps School of Instruction. A month later 25 February, he was sick again. This time it was the painful childhood scourge, mumps.

On 18 August 1918, Joe was invalided to 'Blighty' suffering from an abscess on the heel of his right foot. He was admitted to the Essex County Hospital in Colchester where he wrote a cheery letter to his parents in Ballarat.

During two weeks leave after being discharged from hospital Joe managed to visit his father's family near St Just in Cornwall, where he was most impressed with the size of the blackberries! '...Father was right when he use (sic) to say the blackberrys (sic) in Ausey were nothing like the blackberrys at home...'

After the Armistice was declared on 11 November 1918, Joe again travelled to Cornwall to stay with 'Aunt' Emily Tippett, his father's cousin, for the week after Christmas. In fact he arrived too late to catch the transport to St Just and had to walk the 5.6 miles from Penzance to Emily's home.

He apparently looked the picture of health He was obviously enjoying himself and was late returning to barracks. He had made every effort to make it back on time - even spending a night in a barn in a field, but was still marked as Absent Without Leave and docked six days pay.

Joe may indeed have looked well, in fact his parents had even been told the name of the ship on which he would be returning but it was only a month later that he was sick again. Admitted to the 1st Australian General Hospital at Sutton Veny on 30 January 1919 Joe was gravely ill with Influenza. The Night Matron said she knew it 'was a case of death' when Joe was brought in with a temperature of 105°.

In a hospital where there were regularly '…half a dozen dying each night…' as the '…flu epidemic raged…', Joe's chances of survival were extremely poor.

Sadly, the Matron was proved right when Joe died a week later on 6 February 1919.

He was taken to the St John the Evangelist Churchyard at Sutton Veny and buried there on the 10 February with '…full military honours…', the coffin draped with the Australian flag being borne to the graveside on a gun-carriage which was preceded by a Firing Party from the Australian Overseas Training Brigade'.

His 'aunt' Emily made the heartbreaking journey of more than 170 miles to attend the funeral of the boy of whom she had become so fond. She was not even allowed to view his body because of the highly contagious nature of the disease. Her letter to Joe's parents painted an emotional account of the time she spent with him, opening, 'Oh my dears, this is the most painful ordeal in my life…'

Every year the children of Sutton Veny lay flowers on the 100 Australian graves in the Churchyard for ANZAC Day. Joe Sampson's grave continues to be lovingly tended and has been visited many years later by his Australian family. And I, too, have been fortunate to have visited his grave on several occasions.

As his letters closed Joe would say, 'Give my love to Auntie Mary, Thom, Annie, Doris and Claud and all the other folks and not forgetting yourself dear Mother and Father. Remember me to all my friends, With fondest love, Joe.'

We too should remember him.