Chester was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his service in World War Two. According to BBC News - England, his daughter Ruth Pole described the citation as recognizing continuous bravery in the face of ongoing danger. He served as a First Lieutenant in the Navy, choosing that branch over the Army despite discovering he was seasick once at sea, which he endured with stoicism, as Pole noted. For much of the war, he was on a corvette ship accompanying Arctic convoys to and through Russia, a role that involved very dangerous work, according to Pole's account.
Born in Ludlow, Shropshire, in April 1917, Chester was the second eldest of five siblings and was told he waved a celebratory flag at the end of World War One as a child. Before being called up, he worked in HM Customs and Excise. After the war, he moved to Walsall in 1949, where he lived much of his adult life and met Elizabeth Proud, with whom he shared a partnership lasting more than half a century. He later worked in HMRC until retiring in 1987. In his later years, at age 100, he was still working at his local food bank in Malvern and living independently, and he talked about the war more after retirement, reconnecting with ex-Navy colleagues.
He was very, very modest and I never heard him lose his temper once, which is truly remarkable.
The Royal British Legion stated that Chester could have been the oldest surviving World War Two veteran, and his family believed he was the oldest man in Worcestershire and the third oldest in the UK. The exact date and cause of his death have not been confirmed, and it remains unclear whether he was definitively the oldest veteran or the current status of his wife Elizabeth Proud. Specific details of his Distinguished Service Cross citation are also not provided.
The [DSC] citation basically said it was continuous bravery in the face of ongoing danger, when he could easily have just cracked. But he just ploughed on and on and on and on.
Unfortunately for him, he discovered once he went to sea that he was seasick, but with his typical stoicism he stuck at it.
He was on a corvette [ship] for much of the war and it was very dangerous work that they did because they accompanied the Arctic convoys to and through Russia, where it was very dangerous.