Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Captain S. Rogerson, West Yorkshire Regiment, the author of Twelve Days and The Last of the Ebb, which recount his experiences during the Battles of the Somme and the Aisne

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. S. Rogerson.) very fine (2) £70-£90

Sidney Rogerson was born on 22 October 1894, the son of the Rev. S. Rogerson, and was educated at Worksop College, Nottinghamshire, and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. A member of he University O.T.C., he was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (Reserve of Officers), and served during the Great War on the Western Front from 20 July 1916. Posted to “B” Company, 2nd Battalion, he saw action during the latter half of the Somme campaign, and in 1933 published an account of his experiences of the final stages of the Battle during November 1916, entitled ‘Twelve Days’.

As one reviewer wrote: ‘Sidney Rogerson has created in the 172 pages of this modest volume a picture that in its way is as compelling as Journey’s End. The fascination of the narrative lies in its obvious truth and sincerity. The author is no propagandist for the purified-by-the-flame school, nor is he purveyor to the ghoulish appetite of the horror seeker. He is content to tread the middle path of reason, setting forth what he saw and felt and understood in those last days when the Somme Offensive of 1916 “was spluttering out in a sea of mud”. He found that “life in the trenches was not all ghastliness ... it was a compound of many things: fright, boredom, humour, comradeship, tragedy, weariness, courage, and despair.”
Perhaps the book can best be epitomised by an extract from Mr. Liddell Hart’s appreciative foreword: “It embraces no action that history is likely to deem worth recording; no epic fact of attack or defence ... yet this narrative of an insignificant sequence of days caught my interest at the outset and held it to the end”.’

Rogerson was advanced Captain, and was demobilised in 1919. He was subsequently employed in industry, and served as Honorary Colonel of the 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Division, Signals Regiment, Territorial Army in the early 1950s. As well as Twelve Days, he published in 1937 Last of the Ebb, his account of the Battle of he Aisne in 1918.

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