Harry Bombeeck

Harry Bombeeck was born in Schaerbeek and educated in Aalst and Namur. After completing military service in 1895, he became a commercial agent and factory manager and took several trips to the Belgian Congo where he became involved with the Crédit Commercial Congolais (C.C.C.) and Anglo Belgian Rubber Company. His time in Africa also included a brief stint living in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) where he was an accountant for the Anglo-Belgian mission. Returning to Belgium in 1907, Bombeeck returned to Congo and spent another two years from 1909 and 1911, serving as director of the Intertropical Anglo-Belgian Trading Company and as a representative of the Banque du Congo Belge.

A member of Salle Merckx in Bruxelles (Brussels), Bombeeck was a member of the 1920 Belgian sabre team that competed in the 1920 Antwerpen Olympic Games, placing fourth. Bombeeck later was a vice president of the comité d’honneur des Vétérans de l’Etat Indépendant du Congo (honorary committee of Veterans of the Independent State of the Congo and of the Belgian Congo) and member of the committee of the Revue Congolaise Illustrée.