Rod Kingham

Driver, Australian Army

“My Dad had been in the Somme and he used to go to Anzac Day so we were an army family.”

In comparison with a lot of other World War II veterans, at 94 Rod Kingham is a youngster. He was one of many young Australians who’d spent their adolescence reading, hearing and thinking about the war and how they could play a part if only they were a bit older. There were also the vivid images that leapt off the silver screen in newsreels that banged the drum for the Allied Campaign.

Growing up on the family farm, a soldier settlement near Leeton in the South West planes of NSW, Rod’s community was very much defined by service and sacrifice “for king and country”.

“We were in a soldier settlement area and all the men there were ex-WWI servicemen and my Dad had been in the Somme and he used to go to Anzac Day so we were an army family. His brother had also been in battle in France. The uncle who later helped me was a Major and there was one of Mum’s brothers who hadn’t come back from the war.”

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