Hero Hillerns

Major Hero Wilhelm Oswald Hillerns was an English officer of the British Army who died during the First World War.
He was born on 30 May 1882, at Hessle, Yorkshire, the eldest son of German-born parents Oswald Carl Englebert, a commission merchant, and Hedwig Ida Hillerns (née Lehmann). After being educated at Rugby School from 1896 to 1900, Hillerns was articled to an architect at Hull.Memorials of Rugbeians Who Fell in The Great War Volume IV, p. 106. He went on to New York and Paris before returning home in 1909 to work in London.Ancestry.com. UK, De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914-1919 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. His father, treasurer of the Hull German Lutheran Church, commissioned him to design a new church in 1910.Records of the German Lutheran Church in Hull, hullhistorycentre.org.uk. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
At the outbreak of war in 1914, Hillerns was living in Winnipeg, where he had passed the Canadian State Examination allowing him to start a business. Hillerns was a pre-war territorial, having been commissioned as a second lieutenant on 21 February 1903, in the 2nd East Riding of Yorkshire Royal Garrison Artillery.The London Gazette (27526), p. 1135. 26 February 1903, thegazette.co.uk. Retrieved 27 August 2015. He went to the Western Front in September 1915, and in 1916 was in command of "B" Battery, 251st Brigade, albeit without being formally gazetted as major.
On 14 April 1917, Hillerns and three other officers were reconnoitering near Arras in anticipation of their battery being moved to an advanced position when shelling broke out. Hillerns and one of the officers were killed instantly by shrapnel. He had been mentioned in dispatches on 9 April 1917 for 'gallant and distinguished service in the Field'.
He is buried in Beaurains Road Cemetery. His name is inscribed on the Next of Kin Memorial in Winnipeg, MB.Manitoba Historical Society, Next of Kin Memorial, mhs.mb.ca. Retrieved March 4, 2017.
==Notes==
==References==
*Ancestry.co.uk.
*Hillerns, H W O, cwgc.org. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
Category:1882 births
Category:1917 deaths
Category:British military personnel
Category:British Army
Category:British people of German descent
Category:Buried in France
Category:Majors