WX3435 LT-COL CHARLES EDWARD GREEN, MBE

Born 1902 Perth to parents Charles Edward Green (Snr) and Eliza Bassett who married Victoria 1891.

Green enlisted AIF 11 Nov 1940 aged 38 years he was married with one daughter, had been employed at Fauldings.    WX3435 Major Green was assigned to 2/4th Battalion Headquarters, Second in Command to Commanding Officer of 2/4th Lt-Col Anketell.

Green was promoted to CO of 2/4th MGB, on the death of 2/4th Commanding Officer WX3376 Lt-Col Michael Joseph Anketell Feb 1942 during the fighting in Singapore.

Green was a very cautious man.  He had forbidden any escape attempts.

He departed Singapore May 1942 with the first Work Party to sailing to South-West Burma where 3,000 POWs worked on three airfields at Victoria Point, Mergui and Tavoy then moved to the Burma-Thai Railway beginning October 1942.

In his capacity as CO of 2/4th MGB and Green Force he was taken by the Japanese and placed into solitary confinement for refusing to sign a no escape declaration.  He was sent Thanbyuzyat, Burma and remained there until he signed under duress.  He was released on 12 October 1942 and rejoined the POW workforce at Kendau POW Camp, otherwise known as 4.8 km in Burma.

When the rail link was completed at end of 1943, the Japanese sent all POWs in Burma south to Thailand.   The sick to one of several large hospitals or to POW Camps really to recover.  Green was initially sent to Tamarkan, Chungkai and Kanchanaburi.  He was sent with the Work Parties to Petchaburi and Kachu Mountain Camp.

Lt-Col Green was called upon to lead a liaison mission to Ubon near the Thai-Laotian border.  Then sent to Bangkok he was assigned the task of commanding all Allied ex-Prisoners of War in the Petchaburi-Kachu Mountain area before returning to Singapore.

At the end of the war Lt-Col Green was decorated with an MBE for his services to POWs.

Throughout the war, Mrs Green was President of the 2/4th Ladies Social Circle having taken over from Mrs. Anketell.

Lt- Col Green returned to his former employment as assistant Manager of  F.H. Faulding (WA).  He was known to be a keen fisherman.

Charles Edward Green died 4th June 1986 aged 83 years at Royal Perth Hospital, WA.    He left his widow Doris and one daughter, Mrs Anthony Brand.

It is believed his family held a private funeral of which little detail is known.

Doris Green died 17 Feb 1987 at Alfred Carson Aged Care, Claremont.