Indigenous Australian, Private Benjamin COMBO, 3rd Infantry Battalion, 23rd Reinforcements.
Benjamin Combo was born on a station near Dalby, Qld in 1899 and was working as a horse-breaker when he first enlisted at Bendigo, Vic. in December 1915. His parents already dead, he named his aunt Mary Combo of South Brisbane as his next of kin, his brother Bertie was living at the Aboriginal Settlement at Barambah, now known as Cherbourg.
Benjamin Combo's request for enlistment was not granted and he was discharged several weeks later, rejected on the grounds of not being of 'direct European descent'. Undaunted he again enlisted this time in Albury, NSW and was accepted for service with the 3rd Infantry Battalion.
Combo embarked on the troopship HMAT Benalla a month later, bound for England but sadly contracted pneumonia during the voyage. He died as the ship was enroute from Dakar, South Africa, and was buried at sea 29 December 1916.
Benjamin Combo is commemorated at the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton which names almost 1,900 servicemen and women of the Commonwealth land and air forces whose graves are not known, and also bears the names of those who were lost or buried at sea, during the First World War.
Read more ...
- Service record: COMBO, Benjamin
- Embarkation roll
- AWM Roll of Honour
- Roll of Honour circular
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission
- 'Bendigo volunteers', The Bendigo Independent, 14 December 1915, p.5
- One of the soldiers featured in SLQ’s HistoryPin Collection
- Queensland’s Indigenous Servicemen Digital Story and Oral History
- Image: Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton, England, courtesy Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The information in this blog post has been researched by State Library staff and volunteers, it is based on available information at this time. If you have more information that you would like to share or further research uncovers new findings, this post will be updated.
Comments
Your email address will not be published.
We welcome relevant, respectful comments.