Henry Rodgers
Tribute to a Cambuslang man and war hero
Dear Ed.
I would be very grateful if you would find a space in your website to pay tribute to Henry Rodgers, who was my honorary Uncle. He was born in Cambuslang on the 21st of December 1921.
He was in the R.A.F. Regiment, and was in Kos to protect the Airfield.I got to know him when My Father, John McKinnon was Church Officer in Morriston Church, who got to know all the young folk in the youth fellowship, There was Henry, John Hill, Jackie Neill, and Hugh Arnott,(The minister's son) they started coming about the house when as young men in their late teens they would come for their tea after church, when my Mother would bake scones & cakes for them and eventually they brought their girlfriends as well. John Hill's son Iain gave me photo copies Henry had left, they are all about his prisoner of war time experiences, after he was captured on the Island of Cos (Kos) in the Aegean Sea.
Henry was an amateur photographer, he lived in 53 Main Street, (above Willie Yates fish shop) He worked in the paper mill in Rutherglen. He was a member of the 199th Glasgow Boys Brigade, and at 18yrs of age went to war. After the war, he and my Dad remained the best of pals and often had a drink together, usually once a week. There was talk that one of the girls he had an "understanding" with did not wait for him, and by the time he came back she had married someone else, I never managed to confirm that story. That was not talked about then. As time went on, he had to move from Main Street to the prefabs, and in 1962 he announced he was going to Australia on the £10 ticket scheme. That came as a big surprise, Friends of his in the Lothians were going so he decided to go as well.
My wife and I wrote to him regularly, and then he was in a car crash out there, and in 1965 he decided to come back home again. He stayed with my Parents in Cathkin until he got a wee house in Hamilton Road, just over the railway bridge from Westburn Road. From there he got a single apartment house in Whitlawburn. He was really settled there. I don't know who adopted who, but he started taking our children to Kelvin Hall to the Circus and Carnival every Boxing Day, He would spend Christmas day with the Hills and Boxing Day with us, after Kelvin Hall. It became an annual event. He got a bit fed up with the Kelvin Hall latterly, and as the children got older he suggested going to a Pantomime in Glasgow, then we would arrange to meet them and go somewhere for dinner. Yet he never told us of his years in captivity, Oh we knew about it, but we respected his privacy. Some times we would ask but he scoffed at it. I have had these things for a few years, and we have decided it would be a good idea to tell his story.
He did tell us of an incident, When he eventually got to the camp he was to remain in for the Duration, someone called his name as he entered the camp.
He could not believe someone was shouting to him. It was Archie Hastie, (of the Bakers) That meant Archie could write home to his mother to get word to Henry's mother that he was safe, because he was posted missing, it took a while before he could get his first letter away from the camp, and with Archie being there already he could get a letter away as quick as possible. So that saved Mrs Rodgers an awful lot of extra worry, of not knowing whether he was alive or dead, imagine two Cambuslang men in the same PoW camp. Mrs Rodgers had to wait a long time, because he was captured on Cos (Kos) in October 1943 and didn't arrive in Germany till May 1944. What a worry it must have been, then my Mother started sending parcels through the Red Cross to him once we had an address to send them to.
The journey from Cos to the north of Germany was by boat and train, in cattle trucks, each held 50 men, it must have been torturous, He briefly told us about it 3 months before he died. As he climbed up the gangway of the boat leaving Cos, he met the eyes of a young German officer who was standing at the top of the gangway with a rifle in his hands, Henry knew if he kept staring at him he would get the rifle butt on his head, He HAD to lower his eyes, he did not want injured as he didn't know what journey lay ahead. That incident annoyed him till the day he told us, as I said it was 3 months before he died and it still really got to him, 40 years after the event, then he and all the other men had to travel in cattle trucks all the way to Germany as you will see by his map of his journey.
Henry took ill in 1981. He was in and out of Belvidere, Then the Hills his dear friends from childhood, took him in and Jenny nursed him till he passed away at the age of 61, in March 1983.
We visited him often, and the last Boxing day before he died I went over to Blairbeth and managed to get him over for a visit, we had a long talk that night. That was the time he told us about the German on the boat.
We lost a dear Friend and our children lost their "Uncle Henry" no relation, but a very much loved Uncle, They have happy memories of him, not just because he took them out once a year, but the fact that he was a Gentleman, and dearly loved by our Family, and the Hill Family as well, Though he had no children of his own, he did adopt our children as his own nieces and nephew. You would never have known he was a prisoner of war, or that he had endured lots of things as a young man just into his 20s had suffered. What we do know was he absolutely hated Corned beef!!
Kos map showing names of the men
who were with him when captured
Letter
to his Father-in-Law from a POW camp
Map of Germany showing POW locations
War Poem 'About four years ago'
Showing Red X Parcels & Rations
Henry, my Mum & Dad, taken in Skye Road after he returned from AustraliaThere is this poem as well, How he whiled away the time!!
SOURCE of THE NEWS
Absolute Knowledge have I None
But my niece's washer woman's son
Heard a policeman on his beat
Say to a dustman in the street
That he'd had a letter the previous week
Written in the finest Greek
From a Chinese person in Timbuktu
Who said that a black man in Cuba knew
Of a coloured Gent in Texas town
Who got it straight from a circus clown
Who knew of a female society rake
Who's mother-in-Law will undertake
To prove that her husband's sister heard
That the butcher's aunt has spread the word
That she has a son who has a friend
Who knows when the war is going to END!!
Anon
It reads...
"I must tell you a story about wee Jimmy and Margaret, today was the first time they were at the matinee by themselves. When they came home Margaret came in first and said "Never again, never, never, never... the noise ae they weans wis terrible, aye and they put us up in the balcony tae! Then wee Jimmy came in just as she finished speaking and I nearly exploded when he said "Aye an thone man wi the searchlight nearly blint me, an he kept shoutin tae ah wis near deef". They are a great pair of pals. You should see Jimmy if he finds Margaret has gone out without him noticing, he nearly goes off his head.It must have been a great thrill to have had a visit from General Montgomery. Well Willie, it is now 9o'clock so (I am at the end of the paper anyway)I will have to finish and as I get ready for work I will listen to the news. I hope the boys are still doing well in Sicily.
All the best,
Your
Brother George".
The letter was written on the 10th July, then it says hospital 28th July - it is then
stamped 22nd August. There are a lot of stamps all over the envelope, he finally got it on
25th Aug. in hospital. He had been wounded in the leg and had to have his kneecap removed,
His eardrums were perforated with the blast. He lived till he was 83 yrs old.
Note to Ed. I don't know where he was in hospital, but my Mum & aunt Lizzie went
to see him once he got to England. Again I don't know where, Cheers Ed.
Margaret
Email from Iain Hill 1 Aug 2010
I greatly enjoyed reading all the memories of Cambuslang (although a Rutherglen boy myself) particularly Margaret McKinnon's memories of Uncle Henry, Henry Rodgers. You might want to add that I placed the original Wartime Log, which has all the pages you display, in the town library in Hamilton, where anyone can see it. Of course I knew the whole story, but it struck me anew that he was only 18, a child, when he went to war!Best wishes,
Iain Hill
