Geoff Chinchen

Geoffrey Talbot Chinchen MBE DFC (31 July 1915 – 17 July 2005) was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly. He was also a member of the RAAF in World War II who escaped from a German Prisoner of War Camp.

Early life Chinchen was born at Elsternwick, a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria, the son of Cecil Talbot Chinchen, architect, and his wife Clementine Wilson (née Turnbull). He was educated at the Melbourne and Geelong Technical Colleges and then studied accountancy. He then worked for the Ford Motor Company as a salesman in Geelong.

In June 1942 he was once again shot down, this time by enemy ground fire and was captured by Germans of the Afrika Corps. He was taken prisoner and placed in the custody of a German Meteorological Officer because everybody else was busy fighting the battle. Before long Chinchen met Field Marshal Rommel who, on hearing they had a captured Australian Pilot, asked to meet him. Chinchen recalls of the meeting, He was a very pleasant gentleman, and he asked me a lot of questions but, of course, I couldn't tell him anything. He then said: "For you the war is over", to which I replied: "I don't know about that", and he laughed. I saw him several times afterwards and on each occasion he spoke to me for a few minutes.

After a while he was sent back to an Italian POW camp in Tripoli which was a far cry from the German Officers who had held him. From there he was moved to Bari then Sulmona where he was imprisoned for over a year. Here he met other officers from the No 3 Squadron who had also been shot down. He was also involved in a tunneling project to try and escape but it was not finished when Chinchen was moved from the camp to Bologna where it was soon learned that Italy was to about to sign an armistice with the allies and the guards had indicated that the prisoners would be freed. King Umberto signed the armistice on 10 September 1943 but the Germans took over the camp the day before.