GEORGE COBBE

     George Cobbe was my mother's uncle, and thus my great uncle. He was also the uncle my mother never knew. The reason she never knew him was World War 1. I only discovered his story a few months ago when I poked my head back into my Ancestry dot com account and saw that someone had posted a photo of him. So I did a little digging around and it turns out he was in the 16th Battalion during the great war and it just so happens that I have a copy of The Old Sixteenth, a record of the 16th Battalion A.I.F. So I trawled through that book and was pleasantly surprised to discover he was mentioned in that history a number of times. This a rare thing as thousands of men served in the 16th, so something special has to happen to get you mentioned and have your photo in there as well. So, from all of that, what follows is his story from 1916 to 1918. It's both a lovely and sad story.

Allow me to introduce to you 5435 Pte. George Goodwin Marsh Cobbe aka the Baby of The Battalion

George volunteered for duty in 1916 and on the 17th of April of that year the 16 or 17 year old (it's hard to nail down his actual age, it looks like he lied upon joining up as his papers say 18 years old, but that doesn't marry with his story) sailed from Fremantle aboard the H.M.A.T A60 "Aeneas" as part of the 16th Battalion - 17th Reinforcements. 

I'm not sure where he was headed but his records show that he left Alexandria on the 7/6/16, so he was likely training in Egypt. From there he diembarked in Marseilles. The Somme was his next destination and he was assigned to the field on 21/7/16 where he remained until the next entry in his record. One of leave from 3/3/18 until 21/3/18. I assume in Paris.

You may have noticed that above I refered to him as the Baby of the Battalion. Well it seems that he was considered by most other regular soldiers in the battalion to be too young, a mere lad, and one who had to be protected. So they made him a runner for the Headquarters Orderly Room. I mean look at that face. Just a boy.

The next entry on his records is the 16/8/18... killed in action.

What follows are four accounts of his death, whilst they're sad to read you get the sense that the other soldiers in the battalion really liked and loved him, he was their mascot, they wanted to protect him from the horror of war, but as you'll read, that just wasn't possible.

Unfortunately they mispelt his name under the first photo of him in the history, see below, he looks a couple of years older here that his enlistment photo above. 

I love that he had many narrow escapes, I imagine him whipping around the trenches running messages from the front to the rear, dodging it all. But sadly he finally ran out of dodges.

The place of his death was the cellar of a building the 16th had commandeered as their headquarters behind the lines. Seems the Germans maybe knew this and they lobbed a bloody big shell onto it which exploded in the cellar killing three men and wounding two others, one of the killed being George. Eighty seven days (12 weeks and 3 days) out from the end of the war.

I did note reading the above description of his death that we are first informed of the loss of typewriters and tables before we are told of the loss of life. Priorities? Gosh, I do hope someone was able to collect and sort those records. But I guess the book I'm using to research this wouldn't exist in its current form if they hadn't, so I suppose there's that.

George had two burials, the first being at the Weincourt Cemetery, which isn't an actual cemetery. The name typically references historical World War I operational areas or local communal burial grounds, a temporary burial place. Some time later he was exhumed and then reburied in Heath Cemetary, Villers Bretonneux.

All three of the men killed in the cellar are buried here next to each other

Left to right: John C.D Warren, George Cobbe and William G Bull.

News reaches home that George is gone and my great grandmother eventually receives his belongings. A wallet, a broken watch, a key, some photos and some cards. That's it, a son for "King & Country" and this is all you get in return...

Then they told her she couldn't have the words she wanted on his grave stone, a couple of letters too many I'm afraid, you'll have to shorten that, never mind, we shortened it for you.

And finally, one last kick in the guts, they charged her for the photos of his grave and had a little whinge when they didn't respond quickly enough.

Eventually they paid the 3d and received the photos. Funny how we can afford millions and billions of dollars to make bombs but we cant afford the cost of two photos for the family of a person blown apart by those bombs. But that's enough complaining by me, this is meant to honour the memory of a lad who was loved by all that met him and lost his life to the follies of old men on the other side of the world. Let me not detract from that.

But it's okay, they gave him three awards

I discovered through all of this that his name is etched onto the undercroft of the Cenotaph at the State War Memorial in Kings Park that towers above my home city of Perth, so I'll visit that soon and pay my respects to him and the other 7000 plus names alongside him. 

His name is also on one of the bronze panels in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra along with 103,000 others, and his name is projected onto the facade of the Hall of Memory (the dome) every three months during the evening honour roll.

Finally there is this amazing photo of George (which now hangs in my home), taken in the field in his messenger kit. Imagine dealing with all of that at that young age.

16th Battalion Colours

Rest in peace Great Uncle George

My great grandfathers grave, which mentions George as well.