KAPPE, Charles Henry
| Service Number: | 346 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 6 August 1940 |
| Last Rank: | Brigadier |
| Last Unit: | Not yet discovered |
| Born: | Ballarat, Vic., 2 December 1900 |
| Home Town: | Ballarat, Central Highlands, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Not yet discovered |
| Died: | 23 October 1967, aged 66 years, cause of death not yet discovered, place of death not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: |
Mount Thompson Memorial Gardens & Crematorium, Queensland Columbarium 8, Section 1 |
| Memorials: | Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, Ballarat Brigadier Charles Henry Kappe Memorial Plaque, Queensland Garden of Remembrance (Pinnaroo), Qld |
World War 2 Service
| 6 Aug 1940: | Enlisted Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Brigadier, 346 | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Dec 1954: | Discharged Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Brigadier, 346 |
Help us honour Charles Henry Kappe's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography contributed by Faithe Jones
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Kappe wrote his 200,000-word history "The Malayan Campaign" as a prisoner of war in Changi and in Thailand between 1942 and 1945. It was the first full history of the Malaya-Singapore campaign to be written by a participant, though its significance has only become apparent on the sixtieth anniversary of the campaign.
Kappe, a regular soldier, had been the 8th Australian Division's chief signals officer. In Changi he was given the task of compiling the Australian war diaries of the campaign which ended with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. His work equipped him with an understanding of the fighting which from mid-1942 enabled him to give lectures to his fellow prisoners of war in which he answered many of their urgent questions about why British Commonwealth forces had been defeated in Malaya and Singapore.
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