Personal
Information
Sheet
Name: Ernest Rex Rodgers
DOB: 19th June 1902
Rank: Warrant Officer
Service Identity Number:
Service/Regiment/Corp: Hong Kong Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
Unit:
Died: 1958
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Ernest joined the Merchant Navy as an apprentice at 17. He was cited as a police officer on a passenger ship bound for Shanghai in 1925 then later travelled from Yokohama to New York cited as a "Planter from Malaya".
Between 1936 and 1940 he appears to have married Mary in Shanghai.
In 1939 Ernest joined the Hong Kong Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve minewatchers, was captured by the Japanese and departed for Japan on the Lisbon Maru.
Ernest escaped the Lisbon Maru but was rounded up again and sent to the Osaka prison camp where he was held until 1945 and from where he was liberated.
In December 1945 he is recorded on a ship in-coming from Hong Kong cited as a Naval Officer and accompanied by Mary destination Paignton, Devon. She was travelling from Hong Kong, he from Japan.
Ernest and Mary seem to have had a fairly settled life in Devon and Dunstable although a final irony was to follow. Ernest was working for Hunting Percival Aircraft Ltd. where he died in an accident at work in 1958.
The above information was provided by Phillippa Goad.
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