Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Clinton Gregory Siebenhausen was the first born child and eldest son of a farmer in the small town of Allora between Toowoomba & Warwick on the Darling Downs. His grandparents were both German immigrants who came to work the land in the new State of Queensland around the time that Queensland separated from New South Wales. Although he had slight autism, he led an extraordinary life. On November 17, 1915 one year after the start of the First World War, Clinton joined the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) at age 19 and soon enough would find himself fighting on the Western Front in Europe.   

In October 1914, Australia sent its first soldiers overseas on active service to join force with the Allies throughout Europe. Clinton’s story starts here, in June 1916, where he embarked aboard the Star of Victoria to join the 7th training Battalion at Rollestone in England.  Despite his constant battle with scabies and trench fever, Clinton re-joined his unit on June 9th 1917 and for the next four months fought in Belgium at Broodseinde Ridge. The Belgium campaign at Broodseinde Ridge was particularly bloody and some idea of the horror can be gained from the official history of the battle on October 1917, when in just one bloody day, 6, 500 Australian troops were either killed or wounded and 25, 000 Germans were too with a further 5,000 taken prisoner.

One of the most tragic days during the war, as told by history…
"The assault was timed for 6am on Oct 4. As luck would have it, the German Command had planned an attack for precisely the same time. At 5:20am, as the Australian troops lay in shell holes under a steady drizzle, heavy German shelling came down to be followed 10 minutes later by a trench-mortar bombardment. Approximately 1 in 7 Australians were hit. The survivors could do nothing but wait stoically for their own barrage which, punctually started at 6am on the ridge.

The Australians scrambled up and moved forward. Simultaneously, lines of German infantry rose in front of them. For a second, the opposing troops were immobile, staring at each other only 30 metres apart. The Australian Lewis gunners fired first, then German soldiers broke and few survived the Australian's bayonet onslaught."

Clinton was killed in action in Broodseinde Ridge in Belgium on that very day in 1917. He was buried at the Tyne Cot War Graves Cemetery in Belgium. His parents would have received a fateful telegram giving them the tragic news that their oldest child and first son was dead, lost in a battle on the other side of the world.

There’s a headstone in the Allora Cemetery that marks the life and death of Clinton.  His parents lie near.

Clinton’s siblings honoured him naming their children and grandchildren Clinton and Gregory.