Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Pte Samuel Thomas Streeter was the 9th of 11 children born to William and Margret Streeter. He was born in the Monal Goldfields in 1894, as his father was earning his living mining for gold. After a brief return to the Cania Goldfields, the family then settled on a farm in Taragoola Rd at Calliope. Sometime after Margret’s death in 1906, William moved the family to Collosseum.

The last 5 children born to William and Margret were all boys. And like the story for so many families of that time, 4 out of the 5 boys joined up during WW1. Simon was the first to join on the 10th of August 1915. Then Samuel joined a month later, on the 16th of September. Six months after Samuel’s enlistment, William Jnr and Albert joined up together on the 23rd of March 1916 in Brisbane. Albert, knowing minimum enlistment age was 18 with parental permission, lied saying he was 21, when really, he was only 17. Henry was the only one out of the five boys not to enlist.

Samuel had been working as a labourer when he joined at the age of 20yrs and 10mths old. He embarked for overseas service on HMAT Commonwealth out of Brisbane on the 28th of March 1916 as part of the 10th Reinforcements for the 25th Infantry Battalion of the A.I.F. He was assigned to C Coy on his arrival in France on the 8th of August 1916, to reinforce the battalion after heavy losses in the first battle at Pozieres. The battalion moved on to Ypres and then Dernancourt, with Samuel remaining unscathed.

On the 12th of November of that year, the 25th Battalion was ordered to relieve the 20th Battalion in the front-line trenches north of Flers. On the morning of the 14th of November, the order came for the 25th Battalion to attack the German lines at 6.45am. Samuel’s C Coy was split, and each half then attacked as part of the first and second waves, at 30yrd intervals. During this action, Samuel was lucky to only receive a GSW to his left thumb. He rejoined his unit nearly two months later after discharge from hospital on 8th January 1917.

For the next couple of months, the 25th Battalion was used as reserves, deployed in working parties and under training. On the 2nd of May 1917, the order came to move out of camp and march to battle positions along the railway line embankment for the second battle of Bullecourt in hope of penetrating the Hindenburg Line. At 3.45 am on the 3rd of May, the attack began. By 7am the order came for 25th Battalion to attack Bullecourt from the SE to assist the Australian 6th Brigade and the British 62nd Division to capture the village. The attack had been halted by heavy opposition from the Germans. The O.C of 6th Brigade protested a Divisional HQ’s decision to attack from the SE as this direction consisted of bare ground offering no cover, and it was being swept by heavy machine gun fire. He suggested the attack be made from the 62nd Division’s front line. But he was over-ruled. After consultation with the OC of 6th Brigade, the OC of the 25th battalion decided to send in 2 platoons from C Coy to “test the waters” so to speak. Samuel’s platoon was unfortunately one of the two.

At 8am the battalion moved out along the embankment to get into position 300 yards from Bullecourt. As the 2 platoons from C Coy emerged from behind a 100yrd long fold in the ground, their last remaining cover, they were immediately met by heavy artillery shelling and machine gun fire. By 8.30 am the OC of 25th Battalion reported that Bullecourt was strongly defended and that most of the first two platoons of C Coy were wiped out. The attack was discontinued. Those not killed, sheltered in shell holes until dusk and they made their way back to Allied lines. The rest of the 25th Battalion withdrew back to the cover of the railway embankment. The embankment came under a heavy artillery barrage, as well as the constant machine gun fire coming from an enemy machine gun traversing along the embankment from the front at long range. With the overcrowding of troops from varying battalions and the ensuing confusion, many and frequent casualties resulted. During the night some men of the 25th were detailed off for carrying and digging parties. At 3.40am on the 4th May the Battalion was relieved and moved back to the safety of the area known as the sunken road.

It is hard to determine exactly when in this 18hr period that Pte Samuel Thomas Streeter lost his life. His death is recorded on his service records only as 3rd to 4th of May 1917. According to Samuel’s nephew, Mr Eric Streeter, Samuel’s brother Albert (also in the 25th Battalion) reportedly saw him fall injured but was given a direct order not to go into no-man’s-land to retrieve his brother. Did he die from his initial wounds, was he hit by further machine gun fire and die, or was he killed by artillery shelling? We will never know. Records kept during times of such mayhem are not that accurate. Having no evidence to the contrary when the Battalion was relieved, as Samuel or his remains were never found, he was reported “Killed in Action”. The battle and the killing went on for two weeks at the cost of over 7000 Australian lives. On Saturday 2nd June 1917, Pte Samuel Thomas Streeter’s name appeared in the Queensland Killed in Action section on the 306th Casualty List posted in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. Like so many of his comrades with no known grave, his name appears on the Villers-Bretonneau Memorial in France. For his relatives, past and present, the cenotaph at Calliope effectively serves as his headstone.

Four brothers went off to war, but only three returned. The three returning brothers did not come home unscathed. Simon was the first to return home after receiving gunshot wounds to his right shoulder and was repatriated back to Australia on the 13th of February 1917. William Jnr and Albert returned to Australia after the end of the war in April and May of 1919, respectively. Besides seeing the horrors of war, William had suffered pneumonia and trench fever, while Albert had survived being gassed. In the following years Henry, William and Simon married three sisters, the daughters of Francis and Louisa Ward. Albert, when he finally did reach 21, married Elsie Dahl in 1921.

The story of Samuel Thomas Streeter and his three brothers is not an uncommon one for a family of the Great War years. Many Australian families suffered from the loss of loved ones, or from seeing those they loved return to Australia very changed and traumatised men and women (nurses). It is hard to imagine how his family must have felt upon the receipt of Samuel’s personal effects (that he had left behind before going into action) almost 12 months after his death, or receiving the Memorial Scroll and Plaque, King’s Message and Samuels medals, 4 to 5 years after his death. Once again, his brother Albert would have been left to ponder the “what ifs” of that fateful morning in May 1917, and his family would have again been left to mourn the loss of a future never lived. Samuel Thomas Streeter was only 22½ years old when he made the supreme sacrifice for his country. His memory lives on every Anzac Day when the Names of the Fallen are read out during the ceremony.