Hand-carved hair comb : Sergeant A P Colman, M Special Unit, AIF

A hand-carved wooden hair comb with 16 elongated teeth. The comb is concave and narrows at the handle end. The convex surface of the handle is carved with a Melanesian pattern. The concave surface is unadorned, but has written on it in black ink, 'NB' and and arrow pointing to 'A P COLMAN' which is underlined three times. Below this is written, 'MADE BY CPL NOKUMBA BUGAIM RIVER N.G. 21.1.44'

This comb was made for Sergeant A P Colman by Corporal Nokumba during Sergeant Colman's service with M Special Unit in Papua New Guinea in 1944. Arthur Purcell Colman was born at Hamilton in Newcastle, New South Wales and attended Hamilton Primary and Newcastle Boys' High School. In 1938 he joined 16 Light Horse (Hunter River Lancers) and in 1940 enlisted in the 2nd AIF, serving with 2/11 Armoured Car Regiment and then 2/4 Australian Armoured Regiment in Australia. After undertaking signals training, he transferred to M Special Unit in 1942. Sergeant Colman operated as a Coastwatcher with M Special, mainly on New Britain. He also saw service on Goodenough Island and in the Kiriwina Island Group. Arthur Colman survived the war, and returning to his pre-war job at the Commonwealth Bank, rose to become Manager of the Armidale branch.