Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Garnet Winter Duncombe was born on the family property Laura Station, at Bundarra, NSW. When he was nine his father moved into Uralla the small town nearby in the New England District of New South Wales. Here his father started his butchering business, all the sons helped before and after school eventually following their father into the business. Garnet married Ada Green on 28 July 1908 at Salisbury, Uralla, and had two sons and twin daughters. Sadly his wife Ada died in 1916 from complications shortly after the birth of their twins. Garnet who was unable to care for his young family gave them up to extended family, and continued to work in the family butchering business until 1918 when Captain Ambrose Carmichael visited Armidale rallying recruits. Captain Carmichael was quoted as saying, "No man need think he's done his bit until he has done his utmost for the Empire right up to the end of the war.....The war concerns Australia as well as it does France and England."

Garnet took up the call on 27 April 1918 enlisting in Armidale in the Australian Army when the appeal by Carmichael called out for urgently needed recruits following extensive losses on the Western Front in France. Garnet joined Captain Carmichael's "March To Freedom" marching out of Armidale on 8 May 1918. "Two more recruits from Uralla G W Duncombe and W H Vickery have joined since the last issue. This completes the town's quota of five towards the Carmichael Thousand. But the call goes out for more men": Reported in the local newspaper The Uralla Times & District Advocate. Garnet was in the 16th to 27th Reinforcements, attached to the depleted 57 Battalion. He embarked on 5 October 1918 on HMAT Zealandic for England, by the time the troops arrived in London on 5 December 1918 thankfully the war had ended. Garnet had four months war service before the battalion was disbanded March 1919. He embarked 28 March 1919 on HT Karoa and was discharged 24 May 1919.