Charles Kappe

Lieutenant Colonel Charles KAPPE OBE, PSC, AMICE, was born on 3 December 1990 at Balarat in the Australian state of Victoria. He was educated at Ballarat High School, where he later commanded the school’s Cadet Corps. He joined the Australian Army before the war, graduating from Staff College to eventually become the 8th Australian Division's chief signals officer. As well as compiling his report on ‘F’ Force, Kappe was given the task of compiling the Australian war diaries of the campaign which ended with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. This resulted in a 200,000-word history 'The Malayan Campaign' written 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 it has only been published in part and in an abridged version. He died at the age of 66 on 23 October 1967.