After completing some air crew training he was ruled out of flying duties on medical grounds and instead joined the Army's Australian Imperial Force.

The official history was followed by The Royal Australian Air Force (1965), The Golden Years (1971) and Mission Vietnam (1974).

All of these works were guided by his experiences in the RAAF and successfully appealed to a popular audience "without sacrificing either detail or rigour".

After the Argus closed in 1956 he was hired by the fledgling television station GTV-9 and worked in its news production team.

His last work was a biography of Wing Commander Dick Cresswell, Mr Double Seven, which found a publisher shortly before his death in early 2008 at the age of 91.

Odgers was the last living member of the 14 historians who wrote Australia in the War of 1939–1945 and was survived by two of his siblings, his wife and sons and their five grandchildren.