Harrold Frederick Illman
RSL (Port Pirie Sub Branch) Inc.Harrold Frederick (Mick) Illman was born on 13th January 1898 in Crystal Brook, South Australia to John Willian Illman and Annie Lawson Illman nee’ Hoskins.
He was educated at Solomontown Primary School and Port Pirie High Schools. As a lad he was very popular and his parents, who ran the Solomontown Post Office, were highly respected residents of the town.
After education Mick entered the employ of Messrs. Charles Geddes & Co. and subsequently joined the Railway Department at Port Pirie. He was transferred thence to the parcels office at Adelaide where he was employed as a Clerk.
Private Harrold Frederick (Mick) Illman, Service Number 6832A, enlisted on August 21st 1917, when he was just 19 years and six months old, sailing with the 20th Reinforcements 27th Infantry Battalion in October of the same year.
Upon disembarking in Devonport, England, he was stationed at Fovant Camp on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire with the 5th Training Battalion, Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in preparation to fight on the Western Front.
On 4th April 1918 Mick landed in France and was transferred to the 48th Infantry Battalion who were fighting in Northern France.
The Battalion fought its last and one of the most significant actions in its history on the 18th September 1918 during the opening phase of the assault on the Hindenburg Outpost Line near Le Verguier, France.
This action formed part of the Allied Hundred Days Offensive, which was driving the German Army back towards the main Hindenburg Line.
Although successful, the attack was costly.
The battalion suffered dozens of casualties, including Private Harrold Frederick Illman, Service Number 6832A who was Killed in Action during the advance against entrenched machine-gun positions.
Harrold, along with tens of thousands of our war dead have no known grave “Known Unto God”. He is commemorated on the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, France, with over 10,700 other Australian soldiers who died on the Western Front during World War 1 and who have no known grave.
On Saturday 5th October 1918 Reverend W. T. Shapley, superintendent of the Port Pirie Methodist Central Mission, received a cable message from the military authorities intimating that Private Harold Illman, only son of Mr. J.W. Illman, had been killed in action in France on September 18th 1918. Mr. Shapley at once conveyed the sad news to the bereaved relatives, for whom much sympathy was felt.
