Oliver Hogue

Oliver Hogue was an Australian soldier, journalist, and poet.

Family

The second son of James Alexander Hogue, and Jessie Hogue, née Robards, Oliver Hogue, was born at Darlington, New South Wales on 29 April 1880.
He had five brothers and four sisters.
Two of his brothers also served in the First AIF: Lieutenant Stephen James Hogue, Australian Army Medical Corps (A.A.M.C.), and Private Frank Arthur Hogue. Another brother, John Roland Hogue, was a talented professional singer, Broadway, film, and U.S. television actor, and playwright. One of his sisters, Anne Christina Hogue, was Tien Hogue, the Australian actress of stage and the silent screen, who later married Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Guy Norris Wyatt, K.B., C.B.

Early life

Hogue attended Forest Lodge Public School in Sydney, and was active in shooting and equestrianism. In his youth, Hogue was also an avid cyclist who logged thousands of miles cycling across the country's eastern and northern coasts.

Journalism

In July 1907, Hogue joined the Sydney Morning Herald as a junior reporter.

Military service

In September 1914, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force as a trooper with the 6th Light Horse Regiment. He became a second lieutenant in November 1914, shortly after which he and the 2nd [Light Horse Brigade] were posted to Egypt. Hogue fought the Battle of Gallipoli but was sent to England midway after contracting typhoid fever. In May 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant and appointed as an orderly officer to brigade commander Colonel Granville Ryrie.

"Trooper Bluegum"

Hogue sent articles under the pen-name "Trooper Bluegum" to the Sydney Morning Herald, which he later compiled and had published as Love Letters of an Anzac and Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles.
The single work of "Trooper Bluegum" that remains popular today is his poem, "The Horses Stay Behind". The poem describes the feeling of each of the men of the Light Horse for their horse, and their distress at having learned that, due to quarantine regulations, their horse was not going to return to Australia. Instead, their horse would either be shot and, after having been shot, would be skinned and its hide sold for leather, or would it be sold locally — and would, no doubt, be very "cruelly treated".

Death

Having survived the war, he was admitted to the 3rd General Hospital in London, on 27 February 1919, "dangerously ill" during the influenza epidemic of 1919. His brother Stephen was at his bedside when he died of influenza, five days later, on 3 March 1919.

Burial

Major Oliver Hogue was buried, with full military honours, at the Brookwood Military Cemetery in Brookwood, Surrey, England.

Commemorated

Hogue Place, in the Canberra suburb of Gilmore, is named in his and his father James Hogue's honour.

Works

Aside from his numerous newspaper articles as both civilian and soldier, he wrote four books:

Hogue, Oliver, The Home-Sick Anzac and Other War Verses, pp. 37–58 in