[3] Hodges served in the Royal Naval Air Branch, flying as an observer in Swordfishes with the Atlantic Convoys until he was invalided out with tuberculosis.
Having completed his studies there, Hodges was appointed assistant lecturer in archaeology at Queen's University, Belfast, where he began experimental work in early technology and developed his interest in conservation.
Gedye and Hodges combined the study of chemistry, archaeology, and ancient materials and technology with methods of conservation treatment, alongside practical work on excavated and museum objects.
[2][9] Hodges wrote and contributed to numerous books and publications; aside from his major works, Artifacts and Technology in the Ancient World, he also produced Pottery: A Technical History (1972), collaborated with his Institute of Archaeology colleagues Edward Pyddoke and Marjorie Maitland Howard on Ancient Britons: How They Lived in 1969, which "recreate[d] life in the British Isles from the Old Stone Age to the Roman invasions", and produced a successor to Technology in the Ancient World with Technology in the Medieval World.
[12][13] He also participated in excavations, such as that in 1953 at Castle Hill, Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire, a report on which Hodges produced for Transactions of the Thoroton Society in 1954, which included a stone coffin[14][15][8] and examined pottery sherds that had been excavated from the Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Windmill Hill, Avebury, Wiltshire by Alexander Keiller, producing a report on his findings.