Private Vivian Vernon Godden, 7th Battalion, AIF
Australian War MemorialVivian Godden was born Vivian Vernon Victor Godden on 6 December 1896, the youngest son of Thomas and Mary Godden of Victoria. His father was a teacher in state schools at Moglonemby and Balmattum. Vivian grew up in Euroa, and attended the Riggs Creek state school. He then took on an apprenticeship to be an electrical engineer at the Electric Company in Bendigo.
Vivian Godden enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force around the time of his nineteenth birthday. He underwent a period of training in Australia before active service overseas with reinforcements to the 7th Battalion in April 1916. He spent two weeks in Egypt before being sent on to France to fight on the Western Front.
Within a month of his arrival to France, Private Godden fell sick with German measles and was admitted to hospital in Étaples. As a result, he missed operations conducted by his battalion at Pozieres. He rejoined the battalion as it was being moved to Belgium to recover from the hard fighting in a quieter sector.
Later in the year, the 7th Battalion returned to the Somme area and entered the front line near the French village of Flers. On the night of 2 November 1916, Private Godden was a member of a working party engaged in carrying material to the front line when a shell burst near him. He was killed instantly.
Godden’s company commander, Captain Campbell, wrote to his mother to say “We all thought highly of him, and he was popular with all the men … the officer with whom he came from Australia spoke well of him as a keen and conscientious soldier.”
Godden’s body was never recovered from the battlefield, and today he is commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux. He was 19 years old.
