Brigadier John David Rogers, (29 April 1895 – 10 April 1978) was an Australian Army brigadier. During the First World War he served in the Gallipoli campaign and on the Western Front, where he was awarded the Military Cross. During the Second World War he was the Australian Army's Director of Military Intelligence. He represented Australia at the Japanese surrender at Singapore in September 1945.
A student at the University of Melbourne when the First World War broke out in August 1914, Rogers enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF). He served with the 6th Battalion at Gallipoli, where he earned a commission as a second lieutenant, and on the Western Front, where he was promoted to captain. In February 1917 he was seconded to 1st Division Headquarters for training as a staff officer. He served on the general staff of the 1st Division and the Australian Corps under Brigadier General Thomas Blamey. Rogers returned to his studies after the war and became a chemist with the Vacuum Oil Company. He rose through the ranks of the company, becoming assistant general manager for New South Wales in 1935.
During the Second World War, Blamey offered Rogers a position on the new I Corps staff as an intelligence officer, and he joined the Second AIF in June 1940. During the Battle of Greece he supervised the evacuation of the corps from Greece. He became the Australian liaison officer at General Douglas MacArthur's General Headquarters in March 1942 before being appointed the Australian Army's Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) in July. His intelligence section frequently differed with that of GHQ over estimates of Japanese troop strength. In November 1944 he was forced to suspend publication of his Australian Military Forces Weekly Intelligence Review for three months after evidence emerged that it was reaching the Japanese via the Soviet Union's ambassador. After the war he returned to the Vacuum Oil Company as its general manager for New South Wales in 1945, deputy chairman in 1954 and chairman from 1958 to 1959.
Early life and education John David Rogers was born in Penguin, Tasmania, on 29 April 1895, the second of nine children of James Rogers, a Methodist clergyman, and his wife Agnes Caldwell. He had an older brother James Stanley Rogers, and younger sisters Agnes, Jean, Ethel, Mill, Lois and Ella. (Another brother died in infancy.) The family moved to Campbells Creek, Victoria, in 1900, and then to Dimboola, Victoria, in 1905.
Rogers was educated at Dimboola School, and then attended Geelong College on a scholarship, and graduated in 1913 as dux of the school. At both Dimboola and Geelong College he participated in the Australian Army Cadets. He was awarded a scholarship to Ormond College at the University of Melbourne. While there, he served in the Melbourne University Rifles.
Great War Gallipoli campaign Rogers's studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. He enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 20 August 1914, joining the 6th Battalion, which was part of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division. After initial training at Broadmeadows, the 6th Battalion embarked for Egypt on the troop transport HMAT Hororata on 18 October. On 4 April 1915, the 6th Battalion moved to Alexandria, where it embarked on the troop transport . Rogers landed at Gallipoli with the 6th Battalion on Anzac Day, 25 April 1915.
On 5 May, the 2nd Brigade moved to Cape Helles, where the 6th Battalion participated in the Second Battle of Krithia on 8 May, resulting in heavy casualties. The unwounded Rogers was promoted to sergeant. The 6th Battalion returned to the Anzac lodgement. Rogers was promoted to company sergeant major on 5 July and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 4 August. By September, he was acting as battalion intelligence officer, although this was not formalised until December. The 6th Battalion was evacuated from Anzac on 11 December, but Rogers remained until 17 December. He was promoted to lieutenant on 13 December.
Western Front The 6th Battalion returned to Egypt via Lemnos, arriving back in Alexandria on 6 January 1916. In Egypt, Rogers met up with his brother Stan, who was serving with the 14th Battalion. On 10 March, the 6th Battalion moved to defend the Suez Canal, but on 26 March it embarked for France on the troop transport HMT Briton. The first anniversary of Anzac Day was spent in the trenches around Fleurbaix. As battalion intelligence officer, Rogers was in charge of the battalion scout platoon. On 12 June, he led a raid on the German trenches, in the course of which he was lightly wounded. He was awarded the Military Cross. His citation read:
In the Battle of Pozieres, the 6th Battalion did not participate in the assault, but came in to relieve the 2nd Battalion. Rogers went forward with his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel H. G. "Ginger" Bennett. They were able to organise the relief, but the 6th Battalion came under a heavy German barrage. Battalion headquarters was in a dugout that was hit six times. Years later Rogers praised the actions of Bennett, who still visited his companies every day despite the bombardment. The casualties in the battle created vacancies in the establishment, and Rogers was promoted to captain on 23 December. Eight days later he assumed command of B Company.
Rogers's time in command of B Company was brief; on 24 February 1917 he was seconded to 1st Division Headquarters for training as a brigade major, the chief of staff of a brigade, on Bennett's recommendation. The 1st Division's GSO1 (the staff officer in charge of the G branch) was Colonel Thomas Blamey, who would henceforth have a profound influence on Rogers's subsequent career. On 18 January 1918, Rogers became the 1st Division GSO3, vice Captain Malcolm Kennedy, who had died of wounds on 2 January. As part of his training, Rogers was seconded to Bennett's 3rd Brigade as the brigade intelligence officer. During the Battle of Menin Road in September, he laid tapes marking the jumping off positions for the 3rd Brigade's attack. He was mentioned in despatches on 28 May 1918.
On 1 June 1918, Lieutenant General John Monash assumed command of the Australian Corps. Blamey became the Corps brigadier general, general staff. In turn, Blamey brought Rogers in as his GSO3 (Operations). In this role Rogers worked under the GSO2 (Operations), Major Richard Casey, and was involved in the planning and execution of the Battle of Hamel, the Battle of Amiens and the Hundred Days Offensive.
Rogers was one of 60 officers and 740 other ranks granted Anzac Leave — two months' furlough in Australia for men who had joined the AIF in 1914. He embarked on the on 6 October, which took them to New York and crossed Canada on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. They embarked in Vancouver on the and reached Sydney on 22 December, by which time the war was over. His AIF appointment was officially terminated on 21 February 1919. For his service, in addition to his Military Cross, he was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the 1914–15 Star, British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
Between the wars In 1919, Rogers returned to his studies at Ormond College, but elected to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree instead of a six-year course in medicine. He wrote a couple of plays, which were performed by the College Dramatic Society, and was president of the Student Representative Council. He was awarded a Mining and metallurgical bursary and the Bloomfleld scholarship, a special award for a returned soldier pursuing a degree. Rogers and his brother Stan paid for their sisters Mill and Ethel to attend the Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne. He rejoined the Melbourne University Rifles. Men who had served in the AIF retained their wartime rank as an honorary rank, but his rank of captain became substantive on 1 December 1920, and he became second in command of the regiment. On 1 July 1921, he joined the intelligence section of the 3rd Military District.
Rogers met Irene Myrola Rowe, known as Rene, who worked in the Bacteriological School at the University. She had entered the University in 1914. In 1915, she had become the first woman to attend Dookie Agricultural College for a practical year. In April 1918, she became the first woman in Australia to receive a Bachelor of Agricultural Science. She was the only student to receive that degree that year; all the boys had joined the forces. Rogers and Rene were married at the Methodist Church in Balaclava, Victoria, on 14 September 1922, with Rogers's father performing the ceremony. They had three children: David William, Allan John and Judith Ann.
At the time of his wedding, Rogers was unemployed, and the couple lived off Rene's salary until Rogers accepted an offer from his friend Austin Laughlin, who had also been awarded the Military Cross for the June 1916 trench raid, of a job as a chemist at Laughlin's family timber veneer factory. In late 1923, Rogers accepted a position as a chemist with the Vacuum Oil Company at its terminal at Pulpit Point in Sydney, where he was responsible for oil quality, safety and security. He returned to Melbourne in a management position with the company in 1928, and then moved to Perth as assistant general manager there in 1931. He moved back to Sydney in 1935 as Vacuum's assistant general manager for New South Wales, before returning to the head office in Melbourne in 1938. In November 1938, Rogers and Rene took a six-month tour of Vacuum installations in North America. They travelled across Canada in the reverse of the direction Rogers had taken in 1919, stopping at Banff and Niagara Falls on the way, and ultimately visiting Vacuum headquarters at 26 Broadway in New York City. They returned to Melbourne in April 1939.
Second World War Middle East After the outbreak of the Second World War, Blamey was appointed to command the Second Australian Imperial Force and promoted to lieutenant general on 13 October 1939. Rogers decided to enlist, and he negotiated a deal with Vacuum to guarantee him a position when the war was over. In May 1940, he approached Blamey and asked if the Second AIF could use him. As it happened, the government had decided to form another division in the AIF, and to group them into a corps under Blamey's command. Blamey offered Rogers a position on the new I Corps staff as an intelligence officer. According to military historian Gavin Long, intelligence was "a branch which, peculiarly, held little appeal for professional staff officers". Between the wars there was no Intelligence Corps and no training in intelligence. Rogers joined the Second AIF on 1 June 1940, and received the AIF service number VX40124. He was promoted to major on 15 June, and attended a brief intelligence course in Narellan, New South Wales, from 23 June to 3 July before embarking for Palestine on the on 13 August. He was appointed GSO2 (Intelligence) on the I Corps staff and promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 November.
In December 1940, the 6th Division was sent forward to capture Bardia. I Corps was not yet deployed, but Blamey sent Rogers to the 6th Division as his liaison officer. The 6th Division intelligence staff had drawn up a detailed map of the town and its fortifications, but the size of the garrison was greatly underestimated: the British thought that it consisted of 25,000 at most but in fact there were more than 35,000. Nonetheless, the Australian attack was successful and the town was taken. Rogers delivered lectures on the battle to the I Corps headquarters staff in Gaza and the British Staff College in Haifa. I Corps headquarters assumed responsibility for the defence of Cyrenaica on 15 February, but it was soon ordered to Greece and in turn handed over to Cyrenaica command on 24 February. Rogers noted the appearance of German armoured cars, but no German units were yet identified. These were the first elements of the German Africa Corps.