Poems

1914-1918 Reference

Remembering

Interpretations

About the site

A Soldier’s Cemetery

by John William Streets (killed and missing in action on 1 July 1916 aged 31)

Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.
There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.
When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.

John William Streets

During the days leading up to the planned date for the large-scale British offensive against the German line from Gommecourt to the river Somme the weather was unsettled and stormy. The attack was postponed from 29 June to the early morning of 1 July.

On the night of 30 June/1 July Sergeant John William Streets, known as Will to his family, moved with the 12th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment into the assembly trenches behind John Copse. The infantry attack was launched at 07.30 hours. Will's battalion went into the attack in the second wave. Will was wounded and made his way back to the British line to get his wound seen to. He was seen going to help another wounded man but he subsequently disappeared.

Will’s body was missing for exactly 10 months before it was identified; it was found in the area of No Mans Land for 1 July 1916 as the fighting moved across it in 1917. On 1 May 1917 he was officially noted as “Killed”. His family was dealt a double blow that month; three weeks earlier his brother, Arthur, was killed on the first day of the British offensive at Vimy on Easter Day, 9th April 1917. Arthur was serving with the 10th Lincolnshire Regiment, known as The Grimsby Chums.

John William Streets is buried at Euston Road Cemetery, Colincamps. Reference: Special Memorial A. 6.

He was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs William Streets, of 16, Portland St., Whitwell, Derbyshire and was aged 31 when he died. A collection of his war poems was posthumously published under the title "The Undying Splendour" in May, 1917.

Further information about John William Streets and his poems can be seen on the Undying Splendour page of the Whitwell Local History Group website.

Acknowledgements

Photograph of J W Streets: For Remembrance, p. 189

Copyright Joanna Legg & Graham Parker © 2003 All rights reserved