Yugambeh Aboriginal War MemorialPrint Page

The monument commemorates indigenous servicemen who died in service or were killed in action, and was the first indigenous monument to conflict.

Yugambeh means many eagles protecting our country (mibun wallul mundindehla nalinah dhagun).  The stone was brought down from Mount Tamborine by members of the Kombumerri Corporation and locally found ochre was used in the painting.  Artist Marshall Bell from the Kamilleroi Aboriginal clan designed and painted the memorial in consultation with the Kombumerri Corporation to reflect society and to recognise the many Aborigines who fought in war.

Indigenous Australians were not, officially at least, welcome in the armed forces in either world war yet many joined and served with distinction. Many Aborigines said they experienced little or no discrimination in the services, even though they might have had to tell the enlisting officer they were Maori or Indian. At least 25 Queenslanders of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander extraction were killed in the First AIF. Some estimates put the number who served at more than 1000.

In World War Two, many indigenous Australians joined up after the entry of Japan into the war. More than 800 Torres Strait Islanders and mainlanders were members of the Torres Strait Force, formed to defend the strait as a major shipping route. These men were paid only one-third the wages of white soldiers. Thanks largely to research by Canberra academic Dr Robert Hall, back pay was made up to the survivors in the early 1980s.

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