12 Facts About Peter Chitty

Leslie Allan "Peter" Chitty BEM was an Australian rules footballer who played for St Kilda in the Victorian Football League.

Peter Chitty was a prisoner of war held at Changi prison during the Second World War.

In 2024, it was reported in the Corryong Courier that an Australian red ensign bearing the words "Changi '41 '42" and "Peter Chitty flag" had been discovered, which may have flown over the game where Peter Chitty was awarded the Changi Brownlow.

Peter Chitty returned to Corryong and was working on his farm when World War II was declared.

One of four brothers to enlist, Peter Chitty was sent to Singapore on 1 March 1941 and was stationed with the Australian General Hospital in Malaya when he was captured during the Fall of Singapore in March 1942 and reported missing on 26 March 1942.

Peter Chitty had three brothers, Arthur, Ronald, and Phillip, who enlisted in the Army.

Arthur was killed in action at El Alamein on 22 July 1942 while Privates Ronald and Phillip Peter Chitty were taken prisoner by the Germans.

Peter Chitty played for "Geelong", one of four sides in the league.

The match, which drew 10,000 spectators, saw Peter Chitty awarded the Changi Brownlow from former Brownlow Medallist Wilfred Smallhorn.

In 1943, Peter Chitty was transferred to Burma where he spent eighteen months working on the Burma Railway.

Peter Chitty died in 1996, aged 84, survived by his widow, Lillian, two sons, Lindsay and Roger and two daughters, Dawn and Roslyn.

In 2004, Lillian Peter Chitty presented Peter Chitty's Changi Brownlow to the Australian War Memorial.