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Hussen ‘Huss’ Mahomet (NX16752), an Australian Muslim of Indian origin, born 1904 in Newcastle, New South Wales, was a machine-drill man and was married to an Australian woman Philomena and had a child. While in New Zealand, where he was conducting his services for patriotic purposes, and malting cash donations to the Red Cross funds, Cass Mahomet was pleased to say, ‘Now, I've just received word that my brother, Sapper Hussen Mahomet, 2nd/6th Field Coy., 7th Division, Royal Australian Engineers, has enlisted in the 2nd AIF’.

Hussen enlisted in 1940 in Paddington, New South Wales. It was reported, ‘dark-skinned’ Hussen, also known as ‘Huss’, ‘Beachy’ and ‘Mo’ embarked from Sydney on 10 October 1940 for the Middle East. In the battlefield in Benghazi, Libya, Spr. Hussen was one of the parties of engineers who mined all vital points before surrendering the town to the advancing Germans. ‘The Huns [Germans] were welcome to what was left’, he said. ‘By the time we’d finished, there wasn’t a single building or fortification of any consequence that wasn’t blown sky high. ‘There were 30,000 civilians at Benghazi’, Hussen often ironically wondered since, ‘how on earth the Germans are managing to feed them’?

In the Middle East battlefield, there were Allies of diverse nationalities comprising Australian, British, New Zealand, South African, and Indian troops. Australian soldiers firmly believed that the German and Italian forces besieging Tobruk would never conquer the AIF garrison there. Witnessing intense fire lines, hearing the ‘boom and crump’ of heavy detonations, Huss Mahomet spoke about the Allied troops, ‘Contingents of Indian troops helped us to clear the Italians out of Cyrenaica [the eastern coastal region of Libya]’. Afterwards in moments of war lull, he said ‘So, after we soldiers had been given our feed of stew, I used to stroll over to the Indian lines, introduce myself with a few words of Hindustani, and then sit down to an appetising meal of curry and rice. Now, that is what I call working your head!’ Thus, Huss has laugh at himself for being called ‘one of the best-fed man in the AIF during the Imperial advance across Libya’. These moments of laughter helped him get through difficult times.

The army also broadened Huss’s perception of ethnic and racial differences, but he also realised that among the Allies there were those who were of his ethnic background. Being proud of his Australian-Indian heritage, while serving in the Australian Army in the Middle East, Hussen Mahomet wrote a letter to an Indian friend in Queensland, ‘We are mighty proud of our [ethnic] colour’. Allied Indian troops have fought on all fronts and are still fighting. We are always in the thick of it, and many have passed on. I have been in action with my Indian brothers in the desert, and the Aussies, who are also fighting brilliantly, may tell you ‘Indians are [among] the finest fighting soldiers in the world’. Huss stated:

Some of my pals in the desert were God’s own men. Colour and [religious] beliefs are forgotten. We starved, thirsted, fought, and slept in holes together…

Saper Hussen Mahomet was also in the Syrian campaign, where he was engaged in constructing fortifications and in cutting slit trenches in the hard rock. There he inhaled fine particles of rock dust into his lungs, which necessitated his being invalided back to Australia. After one year of active service he must have returned to Sydney with the wounded. While recovering at Randwick Military Hospital, he wrote about ‘imaginary games’ he played with his Aussie mates during the break in battlefields. He wrote when he and his mates got the order, they suddenly stopped playing the games to move on to duty. Those little imaginary games calmed nerves of many, making them forget many pains and troubles; and saving them from going the ‘cafard’ – ‘they will live in my memory always’, concluded Hussen. Prominently invalided Hussen is still known for doing his appreciated ‘bit’. He was issued the Africa Star, the Defence Medal and the War Medal.

From the book:

Dzavid Haveric, ‘A History of the Muslims in the Australian Military from 1885 to 1945: Loyalty, Patriotism, Contribution’, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2024.