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War Memorial
Australia

Son of Henry Rodgers and Emma Martha West

"...459 Private George Rodgers, 26th Battalion, of Kingaroy, Qld. Son of Mr. H and Mrs E. Rodgers. A labourer prior to enlisting, he embarked from Brisbane aboard HMAT Ascanius (A11) on 24 May 1915. He was killed in action on 5 August 1916 at Sausage Gully near Pozieres, France, aged 25. He has no known grave and is remembered with honour on the Villers Bretonneux Memorial, France." - SOURCE (www.awm.gov.au)

#459 RODGERS  George  26th Battalion
 
George Rodgers was born the second son of Henry and Emma Rodgers at Kingaroy. The family moved to Red Gate outside Murgon while George was still a child and he probably attended school at Murgon.
 
George’s enlistment date is given as 16th April 1915 but this date is rather circumspect as the original of his attestation papers is missing and the rather curious notation that he enlisted “at sea” aboard the Transport “Ascanius” which had departed Brisbane on 24th May 1915. The likely explanation for this anomaly is that George enlisted in either Maryborough or Gympie and the original papers were lost in transit to Enoggera. The embarkation roll for the 26th Battalion lists George Rodgers, “B” Company, 24 years, labourer. He had named his father, Henry, of Red Gate, Murgon as his next of kin and allocated half of his pay to an account in Queensland. A statement in a Red Cross file indicates that George may have been involved in cutting scrub at Wondai prior to enlistment.
 
The 26th Battalion was part of the 7th brigade of the 2nd Division AIF which had been raised to provide additional forces to the 4 brigades of the AIF which were at that time in Egypt preparing for the landings at Gallipoli. The 26th landed at Port Said at the end of June and went into camp at Zeitoun where they commenced training in preparation for relieving the 1st Division brigades which were clinging to the cliffs at Anzac. The 26th and its sister battalion the 25th, both primarily Queensland battalions, departed Egypt on 4thSeptember and on 11th September landed under cover of darkness at North Beach.
 
The situation on the Anzac Front had changed significantly from the first months of the campaign. After the attacks at Lone Pine and The Nek in early August, as well as the failure of British landings at Suvla Bay, the Gallipoli front had turned into a stalemate. The Australians were incapable of advancing beyond the line that had been established on the first day in April, and the Turks although holding the high ground could not dislodge the invaders. For the men of the 26th Battalion, Gallipoli was just hard work. Water, rations, equipment and ammunition had to be carried up from the beach to the front line in an endless process. The companies of the 26th were rotated into the front at places like Steele’s and Courtney’s Posts while the exhausted and sick men of the 1st Division were relieved and sent to Lemnos for a rest.
 
In November 1915, the weather turned bringing heavy rain which flooded the trenches, and snow. A surprise inspection visit to the Anzac beach head by the British Minister for War, Lord Kitchener sealed the campaign’s fate. The overall commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, General Sir Ian Hamilton, was sacked and orders were given to evacuate the Anzac and Cape Helles forces before Christmas.
 
In the first week in December, George reported sick to a field hospital at Gallipoli with severe bronchitis. He was taken off by a hospital ship and transferred to Mudros hospital before being evacuated to the Mena Hospital at Heliopolis in Cairo. That same day, the entire 7th Brigade, with the exception of a few men who would act as guides, were evacuated to Lemnos and by the first week in January 1916 was in camp at Tel el Kabir on the Suez Canal.
 
When George was discharged from hospital on 28th January, he rejoined his pals in camp. The interlude in Egypt provided the Australian authorities with the opportunity to effectively double the size of the AIF by splitting the original 1st Division battalions to create an experienced core which could be brought up to full strength by the large number of reinforcements in camps in Egypt. The 7th Brigade had had only limited battle experience during its three months at Anzac and the four battalions, rather than being split, were kept in tact with only minor adjustments to numbers.
 
On the 15th March 1916, the 26th battalion boarded a transport in Alexandria for the passage across the Mediterranean to Marseilles.  Upon arrival in France, the battalion boarded trains for a journey across France to the northern sector of the Western Front where they began to learn the routines of trench warfare as conducted on the Western Front. It was perhaps at this time that George was assigned as a cook for “B” Company.
 
Conditions in the “nursery sector” around Armentieres were very different to the those faced at Gallipoli. The ground was quite flat with a high water table so that any trenches would fill with water. Defences were in the form of breastworks built on top of the ground and battalions would spend a couple of days in the line before retiring to billets in the rear beyond artillery range. Just a few kilometres from the front, village life continued as normal and soldiers on a leave pass, and a pocket full of cash, could enjoy a meal of eggs and chips washed down with a bottle or two of Vin Rouge. The only issue that concerned company and battalion commanders was the state of the men’s feet.
 
Route marches in Egypt were conducted over sand or soft ground. In France, the cobbled roads with a high camber for drainage produced a large number of men dropping out of marches until their feet began to toughen up. Small groups of 100 or so were often assigned to the fields nearby to assist with the harvest. To the Queenslanders from the 7th Brigade, many of whom came from the farms of the Darling Downs and Burnett Region, this respite from military oversight in the warm summer sunshine must have reminded them of home.
 
The AIF had been sent to France with the specific task of being part of a huge offensive that was planned for the summer of 1916. The Australians were at that time fully under the direction of British Commanders. General Douglas Haig had been assembling a large British force, made up of a number of so called “pals” battalions; young men from schools, workplaces and villages who were encouraged to enlist together through the use of the famous poster of Lord Kitchener (Your country needs YOU).
 
The battle was timed to begin on the 1st July 1916 along the line which separated the British and French Armies in the valley of the Somme River. The new British battalions were cut to pieces as they stood up to walk into the hail of machine gun and artillery; with 60,000 casualties on the first day alone. Displaying a ruthlessness that typified Haig’s behaviour on the Western Front, he ordered his generals to push on.
 
By the third week in July, with little to show in the way of territory gained, the Australian infantry was called up to join the battle. After a successful attack against the village of Pozieres by the 1st Division brigades, the 2nd Division was tasked with pushing on from the village to a series of heavily defended trenches above Pozieres. The objective was eventually taken but with a terrible loss of casualties.
 
The cook wagons were assembled in the rear areas at Sausage Gully and for the eight days that the 26thwas in the firing line, hot food was carried up by cooks or their off siders. It was reported to the Red Cross Enquiry Service that on the 5th August, George and Arthur Hamilton had just returned from the trenches with the tea dixies when a shell landed between the two men. What happened afterwards is not so clear as there are varying accounts from witnesses but the most probable outcome was that Arthur was killed outright and George was severely wounded.
 
There are unconfirmed reports that George was taken to a hospital either in France or even England. What is certain is that somewhere on his journey, George died of his wounds and was buried in the nearest temporary cemetery. Every soldier had been encouraged to wear an identity disc and his pay book was always in the top pocket of his tunic. In spite of these arrangements, it appears that the location and identity of George’s grave was lost. In 1921, George’s father was informed by Australian Grave Services, a unit tasked with locating and marking Australian war dead, that neither Graves Services nor the Imperial War Graves Commission had been able to trace a grave for George Rodgers. This part of George’s story sounds quite similar to that of George Hook who is also commemorated on the Murgon Memorial.
 
With no definitive evidence to the contrary, the Australian Grave Services listed George Rodgers as Killed in Action on 5th August 1916. He is commemorated on the stone tablets of the Australian National memorial at Villers Bretonneux which was dedicated in 1938. The memorial register contains no details beyond name, rank, unit and number as it is likely that by that time, both parents were deceased.