Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

02/09/1915

Date of Discharge

17/04/1919

Place of Enlistment

Goulburn NSW

Gender

Male

Place of Birth

Queanbeyan NSW

Address (at enlistment)

Sutton Road, Reedy Creek via Queanbeyan ACT

Occupation

Labourer

Next of Kin

George Roffe (father), Reedy Creek via Queanbeyan ACT

Service Number

3667

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

56 Battalion AIF

Queanbeyan RSL Wall of Remembrance, Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW
Roll of Honor Queanbeyan Public School, Isabella Street, Queanbeyan NSW
Queanbeyan Methodist Church Roll of Honour

Bertie Roffe was the older brother of Ernie Roffe, and grew up and lived at Reedy Creek on the Sutton Road within what is now the ACT. He enlisted in September 1915 and embarked for overseas with the 8th reinforcements to the 20th Battalion. In Egypt he was allotted to the 56th Battalion and hospitalised with pneumonia. He arrived in France on 29 June 1916 and was wounded near Flers in November suffering shell shock. He rejoined his unit in time for the attack on Polygon Wood in September 1917, then at Broodseinde and at Villers-Bretonneux in April 1918. He was wounded for a second time near Peronne in September 1918 receiving a gun shot wound to the right knee and foot. He was transferred to hospital in Exeter, England and returned to Australia in March 1919. Roffe was discharged as medically unfit on 17 April 1919.

In the 1920s Roffe and his other brother Tom established the Buick Agency & Federal Motor Works behind the Queanbeyan Age office. They were former employees of Moore Bros.

Description - height 5 feet 6 ½inches, weight 125 pounds, chest 34-36 inches, fair complexion, brown eyes, brown hair, Wesleyan.

Rex Cross, 'Bygone Queanbeyan', 1980
Bruce Moore, 'The Warm Corner', 1981 (p.81)
Our Queanbeyan 'Boys' No.2, Howard & Shearsby, Yass (postcard)
Queanbeyan Age - 14 December 1915, 25 November 1919, 16 March 1923
Queanbeyan/ Canberra Advocate - 20 March 1919
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)