The mysterious life and death of Harry Freame

Over the last few months, my Armidale Express history columns have been devoted to the mysterious life and death of Harry Freame, soldier, orchardist and spy.

This post brings all the columns together into a single series so that you can follow the story through post by post. Each post opens in a new window, so read, close and then click the next link in this post.

The first part of the series discusses Australia's early intelligence activities beginning pre-Federation and then through to the immediate period after the ending of the First World War.

We then trace the life of Harry Freame from his birth in Japan through the First World War including Gallipoli to his early involvement in espionage activities as a consequence of his fluency in Japanese. .

Harry then becomes a soldier settler and orchardist  at Kentucky south of  Armidale and Uralla. There Harry and his wife became involved .in a variety of community activities, a son was born, but also experienced troubles.because of May's illness.

As war with Japan becomes closer, Harry is again drawn back into intelligence work, this time with fatal consequences.       

Setting the Scene

• Wednesday, January 23, 2019 Australia ventures into foreign policy - and spies
• Wednesday, January 30, 2019 Australia ventures into intelligence
• Monday, February 18, 2019 Early Royal Australian Navy intelligence makes a difference
• Tuesday, February 19, 2019 Politics burns spy moves

The Life of Harry Freame

• Monday, February 25, 2019 Creating the Freame legend
• Wednesday, February 27, 2019 ‘Spy’ a hero of Gallipoli
• Wednesday, March 06, 2019 Harry in the frame for new agency
• Wednesday, April 10, 2019 Settlement for soldiers: half the new farms would fail
• Wednesday, April 17, 2019 Building a new life book-ended by war
• Wednesday, April 24, 2019 Battling settlement and separation
• Wednesday, May 01, 2019 The Growers' Co-operative debate
• Wednesday, May 08, 2019 A brief period of stability and success for the Freame family as the clouds gather
• Wednesday, May 15, 2019 Japan's Empire a threat
• Wednesday, May 22, 2019 Nation unprepared for threat of war
• Wednesday, June 05, 2019 Harry Freame: odd jobs man in Japan
• Wednesday, June 12, 2019 End of a mysterious life: Harry Freame returns to Australia to die

A Note on Sources

I have called Harry Harry because that is the name normally used in Australia. He was Henry to his wife's English family. I have called his wife May rather than Edith, her formal first name, because that seems to have been how she was known.

 I have used John Fahey's Australia's First Spies: The remarkable story of Australia's intelligence operations, 1901-45 (Allen & Unwin 2018) for background material on Australia's intelligence operations as well as his chapter on Harry Freame. I have also drawn from James W. Courtney, 'Freame, Wykeham Henry Koba (1885–1941)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/freame-wykeham-henry-koba-6241/text10743, published first in hardcopy 1981, as well as military history web sites. 

Family material including references to family letters is drawn from Sheila Goodyear's WYKEHAM HENRY KOBA FREAME, DCM: an ANZAC in the family

Material on the Kentucky period is drawn especially from Sheila Goodyear supplemented by the regular reports on Kentucky activities contained in the Uralla Times accessed via Trove.