The Rat of Tobruk, who called Warrnambool home for more than 60 years, died last week just a few months short of what would have been his 100th birthday.

Warrnambool RSL sub-branch president John Miles said Mr Caple was a wonderful man.

“He was a gentleman, a real gentleman,” Mr Miles said.

“I never heard him say anything bad about anyone or anything. The people at Fletcher Jones, where he worked for many years, say the same.

“He was always a great advocate of the RSL.”

Born on a farm in the Wimmera, Mr Caple was 21 when he served in Tobruk, joining the fellow Australian, British, Indian, Polish and Czechoslovakian troops who doggedly held off German forces in 1941 for eight months.

He then survived two close encounters with German shells at El Alamein. He returned to Australia for training in jungle warfare, before spending eight months in Papua New Guinea.

Returning from the war, Mr Caple married fiance Sheila and settled in Warrnambool.

He picked up work at the Sharp Brothers ginger beer factory in Banyan Street, at Tag Walter’s fruit shop in Liebig Street and a sawmill at Garvoc, before he was introduced to Fletcher Jones, who was keen to help ex-servicemen find employment in his new clothing factory.

“He said married men with young children were the best workers, so I fitted the bill,” Mr Caple told The Standard in 2012.

The next three decades were spent at the Pleasant Hill factory where he started as a machinist and rose to department manager overseeing the production of up to 1000 pairs of slacks a day.

About five years ago, the then-93-year-old moved to Melbourne to be closer to his family.

Mr Caple was a father of four, grandfather of 11 and great-grandfather to 15.

A memorial service will be held at Scots’ Church, Collins Street, Melbourne, on Friday.

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