Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Date of Enlistment
- 03/11/1914
- Place of Enlistment
- Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Other Name(s)
- Known as 'Harold', nicknamed 'Putt'
- Date of Birth
- 22/11/1893
- Place of Birth
- Oak Park Station, Einasleigh, Queensland
- Address (at enlistment)
- Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
- School(s) Attended
- The Southport School (Queensland)
- Occupation
- Soldier
- Next of Kin
- Mary Nimmo (mother), Einasleigh via Cairns, Queensland
Unit and Rank Details
- Final Rank
- Major
- Final Unit
- 5 Light Horse Regiment AIF
Awards and Honours
Mentioned in Despatches (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette: 23 May 1919, page 895, position 21)
Notes
Nimmo entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon on 7 March 1912 and was a member of the guard of honour formed by the cadets at the naming ceremony for Canberra on 12 March 1913. He was graduated early on 2 November 1914 and enlisted as a Lieutenant in A Squadron of the 5th Light Horse Regiment, landing on Gallipoli on 20 May 1915. He served as his regiment's adjutant until being evacuated in August 1915 with enteric fever. He rejoined his unit in Egypt in 1916 and served in Palestine in staff roles with the 5th Light Horse Regiment, the 1st and 2nd Light Horse brigades and the British 160th Infantry Brigade. Nimmo was promoted to the rank of Major in July 1917.
He returned to Australia in 1919 and received the retrospective award of the Sword of Honour for 1915, given by RMC to the cadet who displays the most exemplary conduct and performance of duties. In 1920 he returned to Duntroon and became an instructor in cavalry and rifle training. On 25 June 1921 he married Joan 'Peggy' Cunningham from Tuggeranong whom he had met while he was a cadet. Their son James was born while Nimmo was based at Duntroon and would serve in the RAF in World War 2 before being killed in action over Denmark in 1944.
Harold Nimmo remained in the army and served in World War 2 in various capacities in armoured brigades and with the infantry, finishing the war as a Brigadier commanding the 34th Infantry Brigade on Morotai. In 1946 he was promoted to Major General in charge of Northern Command in Brisbane. He retired from the army in November 1950. He immediately became chief military observer for the U.N. Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan monitoring the ceasefire line between the two countries in Kashmir. In 1954 he was promoted to the rank of honorary lieutenant general and led the UN mission in Kashmir until his death from a heart attack on 4 January 1966 at Rawalpindi in Pakistan. He is buried in the Anzac section of Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane.
Sources
AWM First World War Unit Embarkation Rolls
Jennifer Horsfield, 'Mary Cunningham: An Australian Life', 2004
Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
Bruce Moore, 'Lanyon Saga', 1982
ADB online http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nimmo-robert-harold-13130/text23761, published in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 26 February 2014
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'The Honour Guard at the Canberra Commencement Ceremony', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
AWM collection records : P04463.001, 097387, P05689.068