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Brigadier Charles Henry KappePrint Page Print this page

Inscription : 20-April-2015
Inscription : 20-April-2015

Photographs supplied by Sandra Brown
The plaque commemorates Brigadier Charles Henry Kappe who was born in Ballarat and commanded the cadet corps of the Ballarat High School. 

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. 

Location

Address:Sturt Street, Ballarat High School, Ballarat, 3350
State:VIC
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -37.554445
Long: 143.818253
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Plaque
Monument Theme:People
Sub-Theme:Military

Dedication

Approx. Monument Dedication Date:September-1979
Front Inscription

Brigadier Charles Henery Kappe O.B.E., P.S.C., A.M.I.C.E.

Born Ballarat 3 Dec 1900
Died Brisbane 23 Oct 1967

Commanded Cadet Corps of this school

Staff College graduate -  G.S.O. II and Commanding Officer Signals 8th Australian Division in World War II

Dedicated to his memory by the 8th Division Signals Association

September 1979.

Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au