| Places | |
|---|---|
| Accession Number | MSS1393 |
| Collection type | Manuscript |
| Measurement | 4 wallets: 4 cm |
| Object type | Manuscript |
| Maker |
Kappe, Charles Henry |
| Place made | Singapore: Changi |
| Date made | 1942-1945 |
| Access | Open |
| Conflict |
Second World War, 1939-1945 |
| Copying Provisions | Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction. |
Kappe, Charles Henry (Lieutenant Colonel) OBE, 1900 -1967
Description
Collection relating to the Second World Service of Lieutenant Colonel VX48789 Charles Henry Kappe, 8th Division, 1942-1945, Singapore.
The collection consists of Kappe's manuscript of 'The Malayan Campaign', a history of the titular campaign written by Kappe while a prisoner of war at Changi. The manuscript draws upon both Australian and British war diaries, as well as the recollections of fellow prisoners of war, as well as Japanese officers. It has been typed on various materials, largely whatever was available at Changi, including pages of 'naval message' paper, scavenged from Singapore Naval Base.
While Kappe had been prevented from publishing the work while continuing to serve in the Australian Army, shortly after his retirement in December 1954, a condensed version was published in newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney. The work, while available in the Memorial's archive since 1958, has never been widely published.
Kappe’s ‘Summing Up’ chapter on the campaign illuminates the value of his work as a whole. Writing in Changi in 1945, he surveys the span of history that brought the British and Japanese empires into collision in south-east Asia in 1941 and which resulted in the fall of the supposedly ‘impregnable’ fortress regarded as the heart of the defence of the European colonies in Asia. He canvasses many of the themes evident in later writings, but with the significant inflection from his perspective as one who has endured captivity under the Japanese. He writes that he hopes that the sacrifices made by Australian and British empire troops in the lost campaign were worthwhile if they delayed or prevented a Japanese attack or invasion of Australia. We now know, of course, that the campaign in Malaya did not unduly delay the Japanese conquest of south-east Asia, nor did it impede a planned invasion, which was never planned. Kappe’s manuscript is therefore both a relic of the time and the situation in which it was written, and also a uniquely valuable source on the campaign.