Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Stephen was born in the Silver City of Broken Hill on the 6th November, 1904. Stephen married Edith Isabel with the two living at Torrensville with Stephen working as a painter. However, with the outbreak of WWII and at the mature age of 35, he enlisted on the 24th June 1940 being allocated the number SX6693 and placed in the newly formed 2/48th Battalion. Early training began at Wayville, before moving to Woodside in the Adelaide Hills. A week of leave preceded his battalion boarding the Stratheden on the 7th November ’40, arriving in the Middle East on the 17th December. There the recruits completing a few months training in Cyrenaica.
Stephen was briefly promoted to Acting Corporal in the Headquarters Guard Battalion, then over March ’41 Allied soldiers were on the move, enemy soldiers were rounded up and much scrounging was undertaken looking for ‘useful’ equipment that could be utilised or repurposed. . Specific details of how Stephen was captured remain vague as he was part of the group that embarked for Greece but his capture was around the 29th April, 1941.
Initially, Stephen was listed as missing. In the first list, published in mid-June, ‘41 18 men were listed as missing. From Stephen’s 2/48th Battalion, were Cornelius L S Carter SX7154 Yatala Pte Ralph F Churches SX5286 Flinders Park. At the same time those from the Head Quarter Corps he had joined were Pte Harold L Lange SX7470, Hackney Pte George H Pearce SX7401, Mindarie Pte Stephen H R Rogers SX6693 Torrensville and Pte Roy A Taylor SX6874 Inf Norwood. It was eventually learned that all had been taken prisoners, with Ralph later explaining that the unit was overrun by German forces. (He and six companions commandeered a boat, rowing for two weeks down the east coast of Greece. He later also coordinated an escape from internment.)
By the 23rd June that year, almost a year after enlisting, Stephen was officially listed as being on the ‘missing’ list, with this being confirmed in July as him being a Prisoner of War.
While a prisoner, Stephen was allocated the number 3857, briefly being held for two months in Stalag 18A in September before being moved to and held in Stalag 18D in November ‘41, a Nazi POW Camp in Maribor, Slovenia. There he was expected to work in factories and as general labourers repairing roads, railways and other effects of war. However, some sporting events were organised. He was then moved to Stalag 18B in Wolfsberg, Southern Austria in October ‘42. then Stalag 383 in Bavaria. & Marlag Milag Nord RTA from February to May ’43.
With the war coming to a close, joyous news was announced in May ’45 that Stephen was no longer a Prisoner of War but was ‘safe in Allied hands’. Just two days later he was listed as ‘Recovered POW arrived U.K. western Europe’. The Adelaide News on the 16th May carried the announcement so many had been waiting for. ‘CANBERRA.--A.I.F. prisoners of war repatriated from Western Europe to England last week totalled 445, the Acting Minister for the Army (Senator Fraser) said today. The number of prisoners who had reached England between April 1 and May 12 was 1,480. South Australians who had arrived in England last week were: SX17 Bobbie L. Fenton from Kentown. SX9147 William G. Duthy from Lyrup (and also Broken Hill Born), DX179 Cecil C. McFarlane from Renmark and S. H. R. Rogers.’
Just two days prior to his return, a very welcome list appearing in the July ’45 issue of the Chronicle that Reg was ‘Reported Repatriated’. In the same list were others from the 2/48th Battalion including Tom Brown of Glenburnie Reginald Absalom SX11667 of Quorn, Clifford Fowler SX8914 from Streaky Bay, Max Reed SX7137 of West Croydon (who was under-age when he enlisted) and Stephen Rogers SX6693 from Broken Hill.
Stephen was finally on home soil in Sydney on the 7th July and in South Australia on the 9th. The News recorded the emotional welcome the men faced at the Adelaide Railway Station. ‘Women with tears streaming down their cheeks embraced returning A.I.F. prisoners of war and airmen who had been away four years when they arrived at the Adelaide Railway Station today. In the crowd to meet them were wives, mothers, and sweethearts. The men were hurried off to motor transport waiting to take the airmen to Springbank and the Army personnel to Wayville. Stephen was one of the named A.I.F. captive prisoners of war who returned on the train.
He then he spent time in the Military Hospital over August being treated for gastric problems and a duodenal ulcer. Stephen was finally discharged, not unexpectedly as medically unfit, at the end of August 1945, just prior to his 41st birthday.
In one official form he was discharged as being Corporal in his original battalion, the 2/48th. In a second form he was described as last being in the Australian Headquarters Guard Battalion. Regardless, he was home and physically a free man.
Just after his 68th birthday, Stephen died on the 27th December 1972. He is remembered at the Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial which carries the poignant reminder; “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.” He is also remembered at Centennial Park in the Garden of Remembrance.
Researched and written by Kaye Lee, daughter of Bryan Holmes SX8133, 2/48th Battalion.