Blessé au combat
Pte R G Hogg
Service No.
14657689
Company:
C
Original Regiment joined- (Based on their Service No).
Border Regiment
Date Wounded:
Friday, 12 January 1945
Details of wounds - (Based on War Diary etc.)
Wounded by Nebelwerfer bomb
Location (from War Diary)
GRUBBENVORST, Germany
Robert Geoffrey Hogg was born in Westmorland on June 15, 1925 to Ernest E Hogg and Margaret A Fothergill who had married in 1922.
He enlisted on July 15, 1943 and on April 1, 1944 was transferred to the 6th Battalion of The Border Regiment, taking part in training for D-Day with them.
He landed in Normandy at 7:30 AM on D-Day on the Jig Green sector of Gold Beach. His unit stayed in Arromanches before being moved to a holding camp in Bayeux. In August 1944, some of them were transferred to the KOSB.
Geoff was seriously injured in January 1945, when he was hit by a mortar bomb and suffered severe shrapnel wounds to his leg, arm and body.
He was taken to a hospital in Brussels where doctors spent the next three months attempting to remove all the pieces of clothing from his wounds while he learned to walk again.
*(Later on, While talking to a section of German prisoners of war, he told the story about being blown up by a Moaning Minnie at the farmhouse near Venray. A POW spoke up and said to him: "That was me - we were testing a new version and I was told to fire a round off!”Geoff couldn't believe it!)
Geoff was discharged from hospital on April 30 but then spent some time in various Reinforcement Holding Units and Transit Camps, still in North West Europe.
He heard that they needed cooks in the Army Catering Corps so he took a cook’s course after the war ended.
Geoff worked in camps at Ostend and Leuven, ending up at Oldenburg in Germany where he remained until he returned to England in 1947, having been promoted to Acting Corporal in April that year. After he was demobbed he took up work transporting army vehicles around England from an operation based at Quernmore Park.
Geoff received the Legion D'Honneur in 2015 and celebrated his 100th birthday (with ex-KOSB and a piper) in 2025.
Many thanks to Geoff's son, and grandson, and to the Overloon War Collection who also have a special page on Geoff https://www.overloonwarchronicles.nl/en/hogg-geoff
1st KOSB War Diary for date of wounds
A quiet morning.
At 1245 one German was seen moving about and a truck was seen to stop in the area 912160.
They were promptly engaged by RA.
This drew a certain amount of fire on to the dummy positions at 801157.
3" Mortars engaged enemy seen digging at 908147.
There was an increase in enemy shelling and mortaring particularly during the afternoon, mostly at 8918, 8816, 8915, 8917. Visibility was good up to 2000 yards and OPs saw a fair amount of movement particularly in the area VELDEN 9014.
Between 1100 and 1200 there was continual enemy movement round house at 911149 and all day in area 912152.
The enemy were seen on several occasions to be using sledges on the steam tramway.
A staff car seen going from 909148 to house at 907153 in HASSELT and later going North at 916154 an hour later.
Recently little movement has been seen at
9016, 9017 whereas there has been greatly increased movement in the VELDEN area and at 9115. This may be due to the attention we have paid to LOMM and 9016.
This tendency seems to confirm civilian statements of one Coy in VELDEN and one in SCHANDELO.
