Before long Chinchen met Field Marshal Rommel who, on hearing they had a captured Australian Pilot, asked to meet him.

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.

Chinchen was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in September 1942 and it was presented to him at Buckingham Palace by King George VI in 1944.

In 1963 he won the seat of Mount Gravatt in the Queensland Legislative Assembly[1] following the resignation of Graham Hart who been appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court.

He quickly became a member of the Ginger Group that, that, over a period of years, was not afraid to voice its disapproval of government policies or even to vote against them.

[1] Although never a minister, he was a member of several parliamentary committees:[1] Chinchen married Heather Woolley on 23 December 1946, not long after arriving back in Australia.

[2] Chinchen died in July 2005 and his funeral proceeded from the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Kangaroo Point[2] to the Mt Thompson Crematorium.