LEST WE FORGET

Second Lieutenant Norman Leslie STEELE

Service No: 240
Born: Kew VIC, 6 December 1895
Enlisted in the Army: 10 February 1916
Unit: No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps
Died: Wounds from Air Operations (No. 1 Squadron Martinsyde aircraft 7472), Sinai, 20 April 1917, Aged 21 Years
Buried: Unrecovered
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Philip John and Johanna Albertina Steele, of 195 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Place of Association: Kew VIC
Remembered: Panel 60, Jerusalem Memorial, Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel
Remembered: Panel 188, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT

At the expected hour German airmen duly attacked the British camps, and Turkish cavalry was massed at Hareira for some action, but this did not seriously develop.  Williams (1), leading a patrol of three B.Es and two Martinsydes, found this cavalry assembling and bombed it severely; thereafter it did not make its thrust.  That the bombing drove the heart out of the Turkish horse was confirmed by later intelligence. Steele was lost on this adventure; his Martinsyde (2) was shot down by gun-fire, and the pilot died of his wounds soon afterwards.

(1) Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, CB, CBE, DSO, psa. Commanded No 1 Squadron AFC 1917/18; 40th Wing. RAF 1918/19; Chief of the Air Staff, RAAF, 1920/39 of Moonta, SA: born Moonta, 3 August 1890, Died: 7 February 1980
(2) Martinsyde aircraft 7472

Extract from Cutlack, F.M. (Frederic Morley) The Australian Flying Corps in the Western and Eastern Theatres of War 1914-8, Angus and Robertson Ltd Sydney, 1941 – Page 63

References:

Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record B2455, STEELE NORMAN LESLIE
National Archives UK RAF Casualty Card 286157, 270014

Bibliography:

Lax, M. (Mark) (editor) One Man’s War: Aircraft Mechanic Joe Bull’s Personal diaries 1916-9, Banner Books, Maryborough QLD 4650, 1997
Roberts, E.G.  (Eric Glendower) (250197) Box Kites and Beyond, The Hawthorn Press Melbourne VIC 3000, 1976
Sutherland, L. W. (Leslie) Aces and Kings, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1935
Williams, Sir R. (Richard) (1) These are Facts: the Autobiography of Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams KBE, CB, DSO, Australian War Memorial and Australian Government Publishing Service, 1977 – Chapters 3-9

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