Thomas Bernard Rodwell, known as Bernard, was born in the Spring of 1894 and baptised at St John’s the Evangelist Church in Boxmoor on Friday, 17th June in the same year. He was the second child born to Herbert William Rodwell and Minnie Bedford who had a large family of eleven children. Bernard’s siblings were; Herbert Thomas, Frederick, Winifred Eva, Ernest Frank, Dorothy, Lilias, Marjorie, Eva, Dennis and Arthur. Bernard’s younger brother Frederick died on 30th September 1916 following a two-year illness and his brothers Herbert and Ernest also fought in the Great War. Ernest, a Wireless Operator in the Royal Navy, survived the conflict, but Herbert was killed in 1917. Herbert’s biography also appears on this site.

When Bernard was born, his family lived in Horsecroft Road in Boxmoor and his father worked as a ‘Steam Engine Fitter’ with John Dickinson & Co. Limited at Apsley Mills, where seven of his eleven children would also work at one time or another.

The family moved in the late 1890s to 77 Weymouth Street, Apsley and would remain at this address for the next seventy years, the last of the family moving out when Bernard’s mother Minnie died in 1965.

In 1911, sixteen-year-old Bernard was working as a ‘Sawyer’ in Foster’s Saw Mills in Boxmoor, but three years later he decided to seek his fortune in Australia. In March 1914 he and his friend George Holliday, both aged nineteen, set sail from Liverpool aboard the "SS Irishman", Sydney bound. Two months later they arrived in Sydney on the 13th March 1914. Their hopes of a new life were dashed however when only five months later the War started.

Following the outbreak of war, the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was formed and by the end of 1914 around 53,000 volunteers had been accepted. The men of the AIF were selected under some of the toughest criterion of any army in World War I and it is believed that roughly thirty percent of men that applied were rejected on medical grounds. To enlist, men had to be aged between eighteen and thirty-five years of age, at least five feet six inches tall, with a chest measurement of at least thirty-four inches.

By early 1915 reinforcements to the AIF were sent at a rate of 3,200 men per month and casualties among the initial volunteers were so high, that of the 32,000 original soldiers of the AIF only 7,000 would survive to the end of the war. In March 1915 Bernard joined the AIF and was assigned to ‘B’ Company, 20th Battalion in the 5th Brigade. He was one of over 75,000 men who served with the AIF who had been born in the United Kingdom, all of whom enlisted in Australia.

Bernard was sent to Gallipoli landing in August 1915 and was one of the last troops to leave on the 8th January 1916 as part of the rear-guard for the planned evacuation. The campaign at Gallipoli was an heroic but costly failure and by December plans were drawn up to evacuate the entire force. On the 19th and 20th December, the evacuation of Anzac and Suvla was completed with the last troops leaving Cape Helles by the 8th January 1916. The entire operation evacuated 142,000 men with negligible casualties. Australian casualties for the Gallipoli campaign amounted to 26,111 comprising 1007 officers and 25,104 other ranks. Of these, 362 officers and 7,779 men were killed in action, died of wounds or succumbed to disease. Nine Victoria Crosses were awarded to soldiers in Australian units.

After leaving Gallipoli, Bernard sailed to Marseilles in southern France, disembarking there on the 25th March en-route to the Somme. From Marseilles the 20th Battalion proceeded to Pozières, where it took up position in the trenches. A month later in April, it had the dubious honour of being the first Australian battalion to be raided by the Germans. Bernard was promoted Lance Corporal on the 14th May 1916.

Following the capture of Pozières in July, the 20th Battalion were part of the 5th Brigade objective to extend the lines to the north and east of the town. When the attack commenced, the Australians were met by a hail of machine gun fire and the 5th Brigade remained pinned down, unable to even get started.

The attack failed but the cost in casualties was high. In all at the Battle of Pozières, between the 16th July and the 13th of August, the Australians incurred over 31,000 casualties, the 2nd Australian Division which included the 20th Battalion suffered 8,100 killed, wounded or missing.

Bernard was wounded at Pozières on Saturday, 29th July 1916, suffering compact factures to both arms and his right leg and died later the same day.

His death was reported in the Hemel Gazette in late August 1916.

Bernard is Remembered with Honour in Becourt Military Cemetery Becordel-Becourt, Somme, France where he is interred in Grave I.U.7.  

He was 22 years old when he died

Bernard was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.