BORN HULL 1879. AKA “COLEMAN”. SON OF ALBERT KUHLMANN AND FLORENCE BARON. EMPLOYED AS A TURNER AND FITTER. HE LIVED IN STOCKPORT, WHERE HE MARRIED ON 31/08/1901. HIS ARMY RECORDS DESCRIBE HIM AS 5 FOOT, 6.5 INCHES TALL, 35-37.5 INCH CHEST SIZE, 126 LBS WEIGHT
HE ENLISTED ON 09/10/1915, AT MANCHESTER. SERVED IN THE ROYAL ARMY SERVICE CORPS. HE DROWNED, ON 08/01/1916, AGED 37, IN THE ADRIATIC ON THE “CITTA DE PALERMO”. WIFE ELIZABETH (HEATON) COLMAN LIVED AT 234 PORTLAND STREET, SOUTHPORT, LANCASHIRE, UK.
By early 1916, he was in Brindisi in Italy and boarded the SS Citta di Palermo. This was an Italian ship carrying British troops, thought to be heading for the Salonika theatre of war in northern Greece. No-one knew that weeks before, on 10 December 1915, mines had been laid outside the harbour by a small German minelaying submarine, UC14, under the command of Oblt. S Casar Bauer. As the Citta di Palermo left harbour, bound initially for Durazzo in Albania, it hit a mine and sank. Several Royal Navy drifters went to help survivors and three also hit mines. They were the Frenchy, Cravenwood and Morning Star. 57 lives were lost on the troopship
