Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

4290 Sergeant Clive Julius Kaeppel, 18th Battalion, AIF
DOW 24 November 1917

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Clive Julius Kaeppel, who was killed while fighting in the First World War.

Clive Kaeppel was born in Mittagong, New South Wales in 1896, the son of Ernest and Frances Kaeppel. He attended Newington College in Sydney, and made a large contribution to life at the school. Described as a “staunch, big-hearted boy”, he played in the first fifteens rugby team in 1913 and 1914 and represented the school at the combined schools meeting of 1914. He was also a member of the schools Cadet Team that won the Commonwealth Competition in 1913 and the state shield in 1914. Clive clearly had a taste for the military. As well as his time with the cadets, he served for six months in a militia force, and when the First World War began, was studying for the entrance examination to join the Military College at Duntroon. The outbreak of the war interrupted Clive’s plan, and he elected to sign up straight away, enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on the 24th of September 1914.

Within a month he had embarked from Sydney, travelling to Egypt in preparation for the campaign on Gallipoli. In a letter written to his former school, Clive wrote that he was camped near the great pyramids, which he climbed and explored, as well as making trips to Cairo to visit the crowded streets and markets. In April 1915, Clive was granted a temporary officer’s commission into the 29th Division of the British Imperial Force, with whom he would serve until September 1915, when he resigned his commission and returned home to Australia.

Months after his return from Egypt, Clive, who went by the nickname “Chilla” while in the armed forces, again enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force. This time, he joined the 19th Infantry Battalion and sailed for the war on the Western Front in Europe. He joined the 19th Battalion in the field as a temporary corporal in early December 1916, just in time to endure the bitterly cold winter of that year. On the 11th of January 1917, he transferred once more, this time to the 18th Battalion.

Clive spent the rest of his war with this unit. In 1917, he participated in a series of battles as Australian forces followed German troops retreating to the Hindenburg Line. In late August, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

On the 3rd of May, Clive and the 18th Battalion formed part of the right flank of Australian and British forces at the Second Battle of Bullecourt [pron. Buller – core]. At 3.45 am, they advanced from their trenches into heavy machine-gun fire and barbed wire entanglements. They managed to take and hold some German trenches despite furious counterattacks, and were relieved of front line duties on the 4th. In the fighting that followed over the next two weeks, the Australian Imperial Force lost nearly 7,500 casualties.

In the following months the battalion moved north to Belgium, where the focus of British operations had shifted. On the 20th of September, Clive and the 18th Battalion took part in the Battle of Menin Road, the first operation of the Third Battle of Ypres [pron. Eee – per] that involved Australian troops. The battle began with an intense artillery barrage, after which Australian forces leapt from their trenches into no-man’s-land. During the operation, they managed to seize their objectives despite fierce resistance from German concrete pillboxes and machine-gun strong points, but Australian casualties numbered over 5,000.

Clive was one of those casualties. At around midday, as he advanced across no-man’s-land, he received gun shot wounds to his shoulder and left leg. He was treated on the field, and by the 25th of September had been taken to the 1st Australian general hospital in France. He was described in being in an extremely serious condition on his arrival, and had to have his leg amputated above the knee. Not long after surgery, septicemia set in, and Clive battled for a month to overcome the infection. This was, however, a battle he could not win, and he passed away on the morning of the 24th of October 1917. He was 21 years old.
His remains now lie in the St. Sever Cemetery extension in France, along with over 8,000 Commonwealth soldiers of the First World War.

Sergeant Clive Julius Kaeppel is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sergeant Clive Julius Kaeppel, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section