Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

RODGERS William Orril AO OBE MB BS FRACP FRACS DTM&H

1936-

William Orril Rodgers was born on 1st December 1936. He was the son of William Rodgers, and Elvie Cecelia, nee Mellor. Rodgers was educated at Adelaide Boys High School and Birdwood High School. He maintains that the dedication of his teachers enabled him to gain a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at the University of Adelaide, where he gained a place in the Army Undergraduate Scheme. He joined with his friend Rodney Carter and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1956 and attended a training course at the School of Army Health, Healesville.  Rodgers and Carter had mutual experiences fishing and duck hunting in the Riverland; the latter was under the watchful eye of Rodgers’ father who was a police sergeant at the time. Rodgers graduated in medicine in 1958 and it was a joke among the “Class of ‘52” that he won the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Prize and then joined the Army. He under took his resident year at the RAH in 1959, before taking up full time duty in the Army. Rodgers and Carter’s paths separated at that point both going different routes in the Army, Carter continued in the Army Reserve and eventually became the Director of Medical Services in South Australia.  Rodgers married Fay Roesler who later died of breast cancer. They had two children a son and a daughter.

Rodgers’ first appointment, as a Captain, was to 1st Recruit Training Bn, in 1960, to 2 FdAmb and then as OC 7 Camp Hospital in Kapooka where he dealt with an outbreak of meningitis. He was posted as RMO to 2 Bn RAR in 1962, for active duty against the Communist Terrorists in Malaya.  Rodgers had little training in tropical medicine at the time but was able to spend time with WW2 specialists who gave him valuable advice. His concern about the prophylaxis and treatment of malaria resulted in the re-establishment of the Malaria Research Unit.  He was on active operations in the jungle for up to four months continuously in his two year tour of duty. He was the only medical officer in the Bn Group and could not be relieved. It was his first experience of tropical conditions such as malaria, scrub typhus, leptosperosis, Jap B encephalitis, cholera, filariasis, viper and cobra snake bite, heat illness, as well as battle casualties.  Rodgers’ proudest recollection of his four tours of war service is that, despite so much time on operational duties in a hostile climate and terrain, 2 Bn RAR did not have one fatality from illness or injury during his Malayan tour of duty. Whereas the New Zealand and Commonwealth Brigade contingent had many deaths. While in Malaya, Rodgers was promoted to major, seconded to the AATTV, and posted to Vietnam with the specific task of seeking intelligence on disease patterns throughout South Vietnam. Rodgers saw many hundreds of cases of smallpox at a time when this disease was said, by WHO, to have been eradicated.  

Rodgers was posted to the United Kingdom to undertake the Senior Medical Officers Postgraduate Course at the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank.  This included a one year course in Tropical Medicine at St Pancras Hospital.  He gained the DTM&H (London) and won the Montefiore Prize in Surgery and the Katherine Webb Prize in Medicine. Whilst in England he continued with his military service and served in the United Kingdom at the Royal Army Medical College. Rodgers was offered parachute training and after performing preparatory training jumping from balloons he sought permission from the then DGMS in Australia, Major General Clyne, who left no doubt he was in the UK to train in medicine and not ‘break a leg’.  The plane that Rodgers was to parachute from crashed killing all on-board.  After that Rodgers never questioned an order.

Rodgers returned to Australia in 1965. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed as CO 2 FdAmb for operational duty in Vietnam in April 1966.  2Fd Amb was a hybrid unit in that a surgical team and a dental team were attached to it.  Rodgers had two medical officers trained in anaesthetics and one in trauma surgery enabling two operating teams to function.  Rudimentary pathology, blood bank, radiology services enabled the unit to accept battle casualties and at the Battle of Long Tan the unit accepted 14 wounded while the US Army 36 Evacuation Hospital accepted 13 specialist orthopaedic casualties. Rodgers, on arrival in Vietnam, was appointed SMO of the Australian Forces Vietnam, SMO of 1ATF in addition to being CO 2Fd Amb.  Rodgers negotiated the use of US Army ‘Dust Off’ helicopters to collect operational casualties.  Rodgers was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his actions.  Rodgers stated that if a casualty arrived at 2 FdAmb alive then he survived to return to Australia.

The unit returned to Australia in 1967 and he was posted as CO of 1st Military Hospital, in Brisbane, from 1968 to 1969. Rodgers returned to Vietnam for a third tour in 1969 to 1970 as Assistant Director Medical Services and SMO for the Australian Forces, Vietnam, located in Saigon. Rodgers’ earlier concerns about the treatment of malaria for soldiers was re-ignited in Vietnam.  He had disquiet about the drug regimen for prophylaxis and treatment of malaria, especially the use of the drug Dapsone and the possibility of the complication of agranulocytosis. These issues were coupled with the known poor compliance with anti-malarial drugs amongst personnel.  His main concern was the increasing resistance of malaria to chemoprophylaxis and he, together with Colonel Bob Black, devised a system of introducing drugs only when the incidence markers presented.  Another concern of his was the treatment of parasitology in personnel.  Soldiers bitten by dogs and monkeys with rabies needing vaccination was also a problem managed by Rodgers, resulting in a ban on keeping pets.

Back in Australia, in 1970, he returned to his home state of South Australia while he studied for his specialist qualifications as a physician.  After eighteen months, Rodgers gained his FRACP and he was posted as the Director Medical Services, PNG, from 1973 to 1974, where once more his biggest problem was seasonal malaria. Two years later he was promoted to colonel and returned to St Kilda Barracks, Melbourne.  It was during this time that he was elected a Fellow of the RACS as a result of his Vietnam War service and his editing of a book on Surgery in the Field. Rodgers was promoted to Brigadier and Director of Medical Services, and then, in 1988, to Major General and Director General of Army Health Services.  He became the first Surgeon General of the Defence Force in 1985 until his retirement in 1990.  Rodgers was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), in 1988, for services to the Army and the Defence Force.

After retirement from the Army Rodgers had one year as Principal Medical Officer in the Department of Veterans ‘Affairs. He retired in 1991 and moved from Canberra to Noosa, Queensland. Rodgers became disillusioned with retirement and accepted an appointment as Senior Medical Planner for the Sunshine Coast Health District.  He subsequently became The Medical Superintendent of Nambour General Hospital, an appointment he kept until 2005. He was one of three persons appointed, in 2009 to review new information concerning “agent orange”. He married again on 16th April 1983 with Susan Knight.  He and Susan have a passion for travel and regularly take a two month holiday to Europe during the northern hemisphere summer, with Italy being a particular favourite.  During their long married life together they also developed a love of Thailand and its people and in most years since moving to Noosa in 1991, they have formed a habit of travelling to Bangkok for Christmas and New Year. William Orril Rodgers, remains in retirement with Susan in Noosa.

Sources

Blood, Sweat and Fears II: Medical Practitioners of South Australia on Active Service After World War 2 to Vietnam 1945-1975.

Summers, Swain, Jelly, Verco. Open Book Howden, Adelaide 2016

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD