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Kenneth Chippindall - Information

When war broke out, Kenneth Chippindall was working as a station manager and living at Minto on Dudley St in Bondi with his wife, Ethel. Ken was a son of Campbelltown born Henry Harold Septimus Chippindall. Henry eventually moved the family near Molong when he married Alice Clare Keenan. Ken was then born in Molong and made a life for himself in Sydney. Here, he met Ethel, tying the knot in 1913. When he was 27 years old, he decided to travel all the way to Perth to enlist on the 15th of February 1915.

After Ken enlisted he was appointed Driver with the Australian Army Service Corps, 16th Company in March. His unit was then shipped out from Melbourne aboard the Afric on the 2nd of May 1916, and landed in Egypt, where he was marched out to Tel-el-Kebir Camp. On the 12th of May, he was appointed Lance Corporal, and proceeded to join the British Expeditionary Force in France. Here, the Service Corps provided trades and other services for the troops in and behind the lines. Ken worked tirelessly, and was appointed Temporary Corporal in January 1917, and then Corporal on the 27th of March. Later that year, Ken was placed with the 2nd Division Train and was promoted to Company Sergeant Major. He continued to serve with the 16th ASC after the war ended. Ken embarked England, bound for Australia on the 12th of July 1919 upon the Aeneas. A medical examination of his lungs revealed evidence of tuberculosis. Ken and his wife divorced shortly after he returned, he then sadly passed away in 1922.