Studio portrait of 240 Private (Pte) (Air Mechanic) Norman Leslie Steele, No. 1 Squadron, ...

Studio portrait of 240 Private (Pte) (Air Mechanic) Norman Leslie Steele, No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps (AFC) of Kew, Victoria. The youngest son of Philip John Bickett Steele and Johanna Albertina nee Ekman, Pte Steele was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Australian Flying Corps on 27 October 1916. 2nd Lt Norman Leslie Steele's Martinsyde aircraft crashed behind Turkish lines in Hareira, Palestine on 20 April 1917 and he was reported missing. A message dropped by enemy aircraft several months later stated that 2nd Lt Steele had been wounded by anti-aircraft fire and had died soon after capture as a prisoner of war. His service record states on 23 July 1918 that 2nd Lt Steele "was buried under a memorial erected at Hareira by the enemy to our airmen". His eldest brother, Captain Frederick Wilberforce Alexander (Fred) Steele, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers was killed at the First Ypres Battle on 29 October, 1914. His second eldest brother, Lieutenant Phillip John Rupert (Rupert) Steele, 4th FAB died on 8 January 1917 of wounds sustained in France on 15 November the previous year. A third brother, Sergeant Henry Cyril Augustus (Cyril) Steele, 4th FAB, had been discharged for urgent family reasons after the death of his brothers Fred and Phillip (Rupert) and was on his way home from England at the time Norman was killed.