Regimental number | 41 |
Religion | Presbyterian |
Occupation | Soldier |
Address | Bertha Street, Mount Gambier, South Australia |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 26 |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs Eliz Steele, Bertha Street, Mount Gambier, South Australia |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | SQSM |
Unit name | 9th Battalion, Machine Gun Section |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board A5, S.S. Omrah on |
Regimental number from Nominal Roll | Commissioned |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Major |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 11th Battalion |
Recommendations (Medals and Awards) |
Mention in Despatches Awarded, and gazetted, 'London Gazette', second Supplement, No. 29251 (5 August 1915); 'Commonwealth Gazette', No. 133 (28 October 1915). Mention in Despatches Awarded, and promulgated, 'London Gazette', second Supplement, No. 29890 (2 January 1917); 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 103 (29 June 1917). |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death from cemetery records | 29 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), Belgium The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936. Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign. |
Panel number, Roll of Honour, Australian War Memorial | 64 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Dugald and Elizabeth Burton STEELE, 'Muirhome', Mount Gambier, South Australia |
Medals |
Distinguished Conduct Medal 'From 25th to 29th April, 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for distinguished conduct in manning and maintaining his machine gun which he continued to work after the remainder of his section had been killed or wounded.'
Source: 'London Gazette' No. 6545 Date: Distinguished Service Order Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 103 Date: |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Medals: Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Conduct Medal, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |