Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Lieutenant Roger Cecil Madsen (Service No:N5863) initially enlisted in the Militia, as a Trooper attached to 21st Light Horse Regiment (Riverina), and had attended Duntroon Officers' Training School when he transferred to the AIF on 10 July 1940. Lieutenant Madsen was attached to 2/3rd Infantry Battalion on 3 February 1941 when he embarked with his Unit from Sydney for the Middle East (Palestine) on board the Aquitania. Following service in Greece and Crete, Lieutenant Madsen embarked from Greece for Sydney on 19 November 1941 on board HS Wanganella, and was admitted to 113 Australian General Hospital (AGH) Concord. His Appointment was Terminated temporarily on 2 March 1942 (Medically Unfit). Lieutenant Madsen re-enlisted in the ACMF (Service No:N393283) on 28 April 1942 with 2 MAC, and was attached to 18th Infantry Battalion at Termination of Appointment on 6 January 1943.

Roger was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1916, youngest child of Sir John Percival Vissing Madsen (b1879 in Maitland, New South Wales) and Maud Foster Molesworth (b1879 in Sydney, New South Wales). John (appointed Lecturer in Mathematics and Physics at Adelaide University in 1901) and Maud married in 1904 in Sydney, where they raised their children. John, a Physicist and Engineer, was a Lecturer at the Univeristy of Sydney in 1915 when he was Commissioned in the Australian Military Forces as Captain, and in 1917 as Major - Chief Instructor and Officer Commanding the Engineer Officers' Training School. In WWII Professor Madsen led Australia's contribution to the Allied development of radar and served as Chair of the Radiophysics Advisory Board (Australian Academy of Science; 1970). In 1941 in the Civil Honours List, Professor Madsen was awarded a Knight Bachelor.

Roger started work as a Public Servant (Experimenter) with the Department of Agriculture in Wagga Wagga at the Experimental Farm, and in 1942 in Wagga Wagga married his first wife Dorothy May Edwards (b1917 in Wedderburn, Victoria). Roger and Dorothy settled in Wagga Wagga, where Roger was an Agricultural Experimentalist and, in 1945 an Instructor with the Department of Agriculture. Following Dorothy's death in 1956, Roger was a Widow with two children when he remarried in 1958 to Marion Agnes Hemphill (b1925 in Lancefield, Victoria) - Marion was a Registered Nurse at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. Roger and Marion settled in Wagga Wagga, where they raised their family and Roger was a Public Servant with the Department of Agriculture - retiring in 1977 as Director of Extension. In 1977 Roger was awarded the Silver Jubilee Medal, and following retirement, he and Marion settled in Gosford. Roger died in 2002 and Marion in 2011.