Richard William Hodder was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on 15 July 1918. He enlisted in the Australian Army on 20 October 1941 and was sent to Malaya with the 2/2nd Reserve Motor Transport Company.
He was taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore and sent to Siam No. 3 POW Camp, where he remained until 1944. He was later transferred to Tokyo on a transport which was sunk by an American submarine, and was reported dead on 12 September 1944. He was, however, picked up and taken to a POW camp in Tokyo, where he was subsequently killed in an air raid on 13 July 1945.