Ben Goffin

Alias Giffin; Benjamin (when entering USA)

Born 10.05.1896    Place Solchin (Torchin?), Podolia, Ukraine    Ethnic origin Jewish  Religion Lutheran (?)

Father Goffin, Max            Mother -

Residence before arrival at Australia emigrated with father and siblings to America

Arrived at Australia

            from America     on 18.02.1916     per Aerian     disembarked at Melbourne

Residence before enlistment Melbourne

Occupation 1916 painter (ships); 1921 plumber

Service

service number 5014   enlisted 18.02.1916   POE Melbourne

unit 22nd Battalion   rank Private

place Western Front, 1916, 1917-1918       casualties WIA 1917, 1918 (gassed and wounded)

final fate RTA 16.01.1919       discharged 14.05.1919

Army connections friend of Gregory Kunin

Naturalisation 1921

Residence after the war Melbourne, in the 1920s moved to soldiers settlement near Albany, WA

Wife Anne Goffin (née Koodak), married 1921, sons Maurice and Steven

Materials naturalisation (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA)

letter about Kunin's death in Kunin's digitised Red Cross wounded and missing file (AWM)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Sometimes the officials dealing with the naturalisation applications were pedantic to the point of absurdity. Ben Goffin had enlisted in the army on the day he landed at Melbourne, and on the Western Front was severely wounded twice and gassed once. Goffin was refused naturalisation because he could not write, even though during the war the army had been happy enough to enlist illiterate Russians who could only sign their papers with a cross. The Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) appealed on his behalf, but it was another two years before he was naturalised, and only when a policeman had ascertained that he could write.

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