Private Walter Henry Chibnall
Studio portrait of Private Walter Henry Chibnall, No. 1626 of 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery, with his son Billy. A miner of Beaufort Victoria, Chibnall enlisted on 15 March 1916 and embarked on HMAT Ascanius with the 1st Reinforcements on 27 May 1916. He was transferred to the 10th Light Trench Mortar Battery on 7 August 1916 where he was promoted to Corporal on 15 September 1917. He was killed in action at Passchendaele, Belgium, on 12 October 1917, aged 32, when he and a comrade were hit by a shell while taking shelter in a crater. He is commemorated on The Menin Gate Memorial.
Billy Chibnall enlisted in the second AIF during the next war, and served with the ill-fated the 2/21st Battalion. He was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese at Ambon where he died, aged 30, on 20 February 1942.
View Walter Chibnall's personal service record online at National Archives of Australia