The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
1914-15 Star. Impressed on reverse with recipient's details.
Samuel James Patterson was a 39 year old married engine driver from Subiaco, Western Australia, when he enlisted with the AIF in July 1915. He served as a private with the 16th Battalion. With his unit, he embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A32 Themistocles on 13 October 1915. In March 1916, he was hospitalised with enteric (intestinal) complications in the military hospital in Shubra, Cairo. He later rejoined his unit in Marseilles, France.
On 11 August 1916, Patterson died of wounds he received in action during the fighting at Pozieres. He has no known grave, but is commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, France.
His service record file shows that his wife, Jane Elizabeth, took receipt of his 1914-15 Star in September 1920. In a letter to the Base Records Officer in 1921, seeking financial assistance as a war widow after her second husband deserted her, she wrote “I gave the very best husband that I lived happily with for twenty years to fight for his country and now I at my age [over 45] I am left to battle the world on my own.”
Victory Medal. Impressed around edge with recipient's name. Samuel James Patterson was a 39 year old married engine driver from Subiaco, Western Australia, when he enlisted with the AIF in July 1915
Bronze next of kin plaque. The plaque shows Britannia and a lion together with the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR'. The name of the dead soldier, 'SAMUEL JAMES PATTERSON', is inscribed in raise
1914-15 Star. Impressed on reverse with recipents details. 1914-15 Star associated with the service of 2750 Private Robert Scott. Scott was born at Melton, Victoria in April 1893. Scott worked as a
Black silk ribbon is machine embroidered in gold with wattle sprigs, a 'Rising Sun' badge and 'FOR AUSTRALIA'. Badge is suspended from a whitemetal bar bearing laurel leaves. A whitemetal bar at the b
1914-15 Star. Impressed reverse with recipient's details. 585 Private (later Lance Sergeant) Harold Curtis enlisted for service in Brisbane on 19 September 1914 at the age of 21, and was assigned to
1914-15 Star. Impressed on reverse with recipient's details. 869 Private John Thomas 'Jack' Doyle enlisted in the AIF on 21 July 1915. A labourer from Manilla, NSW, Doyle was only 16 at the time of
