Thomas Dominic Colgan

June 21, 2015

COLGAN, Thomas Dominic- – – – SPC ?

DoB:- – 1900, Beechwood, Hastings River, NSW

Father:– – Thomas Colgan

Mother:– – Mary

Service No:– 3351

Rank:- – Private, Trooper

Unit:- – 2nd Light Horse

Thomas Colgan enlisted on 5 April 1917 aged 18 years and two months. He was five feet seven and a half inches tall, with a fresh complexion, steel grey eyes and black hair. His occupation was farm labourer.

Trooper Colgan embarked at Sydney aboard the Port Lincoln on 11 June 1917, and proceeded to Suez, Egypt. After undergoing training at the School of Instruction at Zeitoun in Cairo from August to October 1917, he was transferred to the Australian Machine Gun Squadron at Moascar. He became ill with dysentery in December 1917, and spent the month in hospital in Abbassia recovering. He was able to rejoin his unit on 5 January 1918.

While on active duty near Jordan on 28 March, Trooper Colgan suffered a gunshot wound in his shoulder and back. The medical report stated that the bullet entered the left side and exited over the lumbar vertebra: -the entrance wound was small and clean, the exit wound gaping and dirty-. He was initially transferred to the hospital at Kantara in early April, but by the end of that month was moved to Port Said. It seems that he was returned to his unit before he was fully recovered, as his war record shows that despite marching out and being taken on strength on 25 May, he was again hospitalised due to -old gunshot wound in his back-.

By 3 August 1918 he was able to rejoin the 2nd Light Horse Regiment. Around six weeks later he was once again hospitalised, with an attack of malaria. His war record shows that he was transferred between hospitals from Jericho, to Gaza, to Kantara and finally to Port Said.

On 27 June 1919, Trooper Colgan embarked at Kantara, Egypt aboard the Madras, to return to Australia. As part of the demobilisation process, a medical report was submitted to the war department. Colgan’s statement claimed: -I am not suffering from any disability due to or aggravated by War Service, and feel fit and well -¦ [his] last attack of malaria was 18 months earlier-.

Upon his return to Australia, Thomas Colgan resumed civilian life in NSW. He married Alma Annie Neuhaus in 1922. Thomas became a school teacher and the couple lived in the Byron Bay area of NSW. Alma died in 1961. The College could not discover if they had any children.

Thomas Dominic Colgan died in 1974 in NSW.