Kerry Halladay Soo-Jin Hong

Soo-Jin Hong

Jimmy Jacobsmeyer

Taylor Prainito

Chrissy Parker

Veteran’s Report: Paul Roby

            Mr. Roby will tell you that the most important thing he learned during his tenure of service in the US Army was teamwork. Paul Roby served during one of America’s most turbulent times, the Second World War. Mr. Roby was one of the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who answered when duty called and packed their bags and sailed across the ocean to fight tyranny and oppression.

            In early 1941, America was a prosperous nation of big cars and booming economies. However, December 7^th enveloped America in one of her greatest upheavals to date, World War II. The outpouring of support for America from her people was overwhelming. Thousands of young men signed up for service and the even younger men lied to get in. Finally in 1942, then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was forced to end voluntary enlistment and enact the draft. This was done so that the government would be able to slate men in whatever branch they were needed. An eighteen-year-old, Paul Roby was on the draft list for the US Army.

            Shortly after enlisting, Mr. Roby was sent to Macon, Georgia, where he was put through Infantry school at Camp Wheeler. While at Camp Wheeler, he discovered that he qualified for a college education through the federal government. He was then sent to University of Georgia in Athens, where he began ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program). He was trained in the field of battlefield engineering. Now, Sergeant, Paul Roby remarks that ASTP was a good experience because he met young men from all across the nation. One year later, Sgt. Roby was pulled from the University of Georgia as an engineer, attached to the 10^th Armored Division and sent overseas, to Europe.

            Sgt. Roby and his comrades loaded onto liberty ships in New York Harbor. New York was the last of America he would see for over two years. Several days later, Sgt. Roby reached the English Channel, where he loaded onto the same LST (Landing Ship, Transports) used in the invasion of Europe Fortress (D-Day), and his tour of Europe begins.

            As an engineer, Roby’s job was to clear obstacles so that tanks and hal-tracks were able to make way through the field. Therefore, he and his comrades had to wait for two weeks on the beach while their equipment caught up with them. When the 10^th Armored Division first arrived in France, it was very late at night, and they were very near Nazi troops. It had been raining the entire day before, and the downpour had not relented. The only place Sgt. Roby could find to sleep was in the middle of a cow pasture among the famous hedgerows of France. He and one of his friends struggled to pitch their tent in the sticky mud, but after a period of time gave up and rolled out sleeping bags on the ground. In the morning, the men woke up to find their equipment, covered not with sticky mud, but with cow manure. Sgt. Roby recalls this as his “initiation in France.”

            Finally, after two weeks of waiting for equipment, and a few days of unpacking the new arrivals, the men were able to move out. The first place they came to was the French city of Metz; this was where Sgt. Roby encountered his first combat with Nazi troops. It was thought to be safe for the men to enter the city, on behalf of Allied saturation bombing, however, unbeknownst to Allied commanders, the Nazis had regrouped after their retreat and returned to fight. The American troops emerged virtually unscathed and victorious, but as if Metz was to foreshadow what was to come for Sgt. Roby, the fighting would soon grow fierce.

            Looking back, Sgt. Roby is proud of his service in the US Army, but at the time, he had no idea that he was going to take part in one of the most important counter-offensives of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. In December of 1944, the Allies entered the town of Bastogne in Belgium. The Nazi troops had the Americans surrounded and the 101^st Airborne and the 10^th Armored Division were hunkered down within the city. The skies were direly overcast, and the Allied troops were running out of supplies, no planes were able to drop packages for them. Sgt. Roby remembers the day that the skies suddenly cleared and planes were able to bring air support. He remembers the color-coded parachuted packs falling from the sky (mostly into Allied hands, but some to the enemy). While Sgt. Roby was just happy to get supplies, he didn’t realize at the time that he had just participated in what would be the last gasp of the Nazi army to take Europe.

            After the battle of the Bulge, Sgt. Roby and his comrades moved through Southeast Germany, liberating towns and villages, while rooting out Nazi strongholds as they went. This is how Sgt. Roby came to end up in pristine Bavaria. The Bavarian region of Germany was one of the few regions that had been left untouched by Allied bombings during the war, and ironically, was the aerie for Hitler’s so-called Eagle’s Nest, but for Sgt. Roby, it was the perfect vacation spot. The occupation of Bavaria was pleasant for the men stationed there. Sgt. Roby was hired as the superintendent for the Highway Department for the Allied occupation. As the superintendent, he checked roadside snow fences and coordinated repair work. He recalls this as a “good duty.”

            In April of 1945, the Allies won the war in Europe. Sgt. Roby says this was a “big relief, you could hear a big sigh all over Germany” when the news was first dispatched through Stars & Stripes. Oddly enough, the Allied troops experienced no animosities from the German people. They, the civilians, had been entrenched in war for almost six years and were “tickled to death” to be free again. However, the war in the Pacific raged on. Men who had earned enough “points,” were sent stateside, and those who hadn’t were lined up to be sent to fight Japan. Sgt. Roby was one of the many lacking points, but he was not sent to the Pacific theater. He was sent to play baseball for the Army until his time was up, another “good duty.”

            When it eventually got too cold to play baseball, Sgt. Roby attended college in France at the University of Biarritz in Southern France. There, he enrolled in courses in Botany and Psychology. He continued his education in France until 1946, when he earned enough points to be sent home.