Robert Herbert Thompson is one of dozens on our Darebin In Memoriam Roll that is not acknowledged on the Australian War Memorial as dying in the service of his country.
Most of these were men (and a couple of women) that died immediately post-war, usually in a military facility and almost always as a result of wartime service, but who were not recognised as “official” casualties as they died after being discharged from the A.I.F.
Thompson was different in that although he paid a heavy price during the conflict, it was his former comrades-in-arms that he was serving at the time of his demise.
He enlisted on his 18th birthday and suffered a gunshot wound to the left knee on 24 July, 1916 in an action near Pozieres, France. He was taken to the 1st Canadian General Hospital where the leg was amputated above the knee on the 28th. Thompson was later transferred to the 2nd Western General Hospital in Manchester before returning to Australia via the hospital ship Karoola in July, 1917 and officially discharged on the 24 January, 1918.
He was still serving the military community as the secretary of the Alphington branch of the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League (R.S.S.I.L.A) when he died following a road accident in late May, 1921.
Thompson died of a fractured skull after a fall from a horse-drawn gig in the Northcote area, the exact location unfortunately not revealed either in press reports of the time or the coroner’s inquiry some ten days later.
That sitting heard that Henry Kimpton, a florist in Station Street, Fairfield had been driving Thompson from his home in South Northcote to Alphington “to transact repatriation business on behalf of a returned soldier” when his horse stumbled. Both men were thrown from the gig, Thompson striking his head on the roadway. He was taken to Melbourne Hospital, but died soon after admission.
Although not mentioned at the time, Thompson is known to have worked with the Repatriation Department assisting with the retraining of wounded soldiers at the 16 Australian General Hospital at Mont Park.
“Under Mr. Thompson, who lost a leg at Pozieres, thirty-nine men are learning to work in sea-grass, which is imported from China in lengths, like coarse string. These men work like practised hands, any of their work being worthy of a place in the show-windows of high-class furniture firms. His Excellency the Governor-General lately ordered from this class six arm-chairs; and it also makes excellent stands, screens, baskets, ornamental tubs, and many other useful and pretty things. (“Repatriation : A Monthly Bulletin Published by the Department of Repatriation”
Thompson was interred in Warringal Cemetery, Heidelberg, one of around 20 ex-servicemen resting there, most of whom died in military hospitals but who are not recognized by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as casualties of the War.
