Dr Thomas Rogers

Historian, Military History

Dr Thomas J. Rogers is a historian in the Military History Section at the Memorial. He is the author of The Civilisation of Port Phillip: Settler Ideology, Violence, and Rhetorical Possession (2018).

HMAS Goorangai in wartime service, c. 1939.

HMAS Goorangai

The first ship of the Royal Australian Navy lost in the Second World War.

By Dr Thomas Rogers

Second World War 1939 - 1945
Roy Hodgkinson, 14 Australian Anti-aircraft Battery (Militia) Fixed Defences, Darwin (1942) AWM ART22719

Bombing Darwin 1942

A successful Japanese raid caught the Allied forces unprepared.

By Dr Thomas Rogers

Second World War 1939 - 1945
Alfred Bolter, Governor Davey's Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 (c. 1866, lithograph, 48 x 28 cm)

A Painted Proclamation

A colonial artwork in the Memorial’s collection has its roots in brutal frontier warfare.

By Dr Thomas Rogers

Colonial 1788-1901
Queensland Mounted Infantry drying their kit after a storm, Belmont, South Africa, c. 1900.

Letters from Elands River Post

The South African War was candidly described by colonial Australian soldiers.

By Dr Thomas Rogers

South African (Boer) War 1899 - 1902