1252
KLEEMAN, Percy Holland
| Service Number: | 3333 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 50th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, date not yet discovered |
| Home Town: | Adelaide, South Australia |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Clerk |
| Died: | Adelaide, cause of death not yet discovered, date not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: | A.W.Sandford & Co. Ltd., Norwood Primary School Honour Board |
World War 1 Service
| 7 Mar 1918: | Involvement Private, 3333, 43rd Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '18' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: SS Ormonde embarkation_ship_number: '' public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Mar 1918: | Embarked Private, 3333, 43rd Infantry Battalion, SS Ormonde, Melbourne | |
| 11 Nov 1918: | Involvement Private, 3333, 50th Infantry Battalion |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Saint Ignatius' College
Percy Holland Kleeman was enlisted into the Australian Army on the 12th of November 1917, at the age of 36. His occupation before the war was a clerk and he was married to Mrs. Alvina Christina Kleeman. He lived on 23 King street Norwood. He was part of the 43rd Battalion, 8th reinforcement.
His unit departed from Melbourne aboard the RMS Ormode.
Kleeman was relatively old when he joined the army, at the age of 36. Other people were joining the army in their teens so he would have been one of the older soldiers. Kleeman was quite short at 5’7 ft and only weighed 137 pounds or 62 Kg. The average height of a solder in 1914 was 5’5 ft so he was taller than average. These figures display that people back then were somewhat shorter than they are now. The average weight for a solder in 1914 was also 50 kg so he was significantly bigger than normal.
Kleeman left Australia on the RMS Ormode on the 6th of March, 1918, and returned to Australia on the 9th of August 1919 being discharged. Kleeman’s boat from Australia landed in Suez, northern Egypt and it was here that Kleeman caught measles and had to be separated from the rest of the battalion as to not infect everyone else. He was discharged to duty on the 17th of April 1918.
Kleeman’s battalion was one of the last to be raised in South Australia, and would ultimately become a part of the third division. Their battalion was stationed at Morphettville racecourse. Firearms practice was held on the sand dunes between Henley Beach and Glenelg Beach, and a practice battle was held on Hindmarsh bridge and Montefiore hill. The battalion departed from Melbourne and briefly stopped in Egypt, before going onto England, where they contracted a mumps epidemic. They began an extended period of training of trench warfare in the Salisbury fields, before moving onto France.
The battalions first major act in the war was when they fought in Messines on the 7th of June 1917, before Kleeman had enrolled.
386 from the battalion were killed during the war and 1321 wounded. Kleeman however returned to Australia after the war alive, albeit suffering the after effects of measles.
Life on the Western front where Kleeman served was infamously brutal. It was trench war fare, meaning that men built long and sometimes deep ditches in the ground where they slept, ate, lived, went to the toilet and fought. These were often riddled with rats and other rodents, and the fact that there was no way to dispose of human waste properly meant that they were perfect breeding ground for bacteria and disease. Because of war rationing, food was always scarce and people often went hungry. Oil and fuel for lamps and fires that supplied heat were also scarce meaning that in the depths of winter the only protection you had against the elements were your army issue clothing, which are not known for being the most insulating. The trenches the soldiers lived in were usually two meters deep and two meters wide, they were made in zig zags rather than in straight lines to limit the effects of the concussion wave and shrapnel that came with artillery warfare.
There were also trenches behind the first trenches called support trenches, this is where Percy Kleeman would have been situated when he was not doing his 4-day spell in the first, more dangerous, firing line trench. He also may have been billeted in the villages close by. Trenches were always under threat though, concussion blast may not directly effect soldiers, but they can cause the trench walls to slide in and bury soldiers, and if anyone were to stick their head up for a peek of the German lines, they were likely to be shot and killed by German snipers.
We often hear about the “ANZAC spirit”, and Anzac stands for “Australian New Zealand Army Corps”. As you can imagine people living in close quarters in such a state of constant danger grew great bond with each other. Often they grew bonds with people from other countries as well because if you were fighting for the same side at the end of the day you’re fighting for the same cause. This really idealises the ANZAC spirit of mateship and comradery.