About: Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion

The Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army during the Second World War. Initially raised as a company-sized unit in 1941, it was expanded to a full battalion in 1942 and was unique in that almost all of its enlisted men were Torres Strait Islanders, making the battalion the only Indigenous Australian battalion ever formed by the Australian Army. The battalion was used mainly in the garrison role, defending the islands of the Torres Strait at the northern tip of Queensland, although in 1943 a detachment was sent to patrol Dutch New Guinea. Following the end of the war, the battalion was disbanded in 1946.