Roderick Strohl

Roderick G. Strohl
Nickname(s) Rod
Born (1922-06-24) June 24, 1922
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Allegiance  United States
Service/branch United States Army
Years of service 1942-1945
Rank Staff Sergeant
Unit Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
101st Airborne Division
Battles/wars

World War II

Staff Sergeant Roderick Strohl (born June 24, 1922) was a non-commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Strohl was one of the 140 original Toccoa men of Easy Company.

Youth

Strohl was a son of a car dealer and grew up in Philadelphia.[1]

Military Service

Strohl enlisted and volunteered for the paratroopers with two of his friends, fellow German Americans and Pennsylvanian Dutch speakers Forrest Guth and Carl Fenstermaker, in Philadelphia in 1942. They were assigned to Easy Company and became three of the 140 original Toccoa men of the unit. All of them survived the war. Strohl had a camera with him in Europe and his comrades Forrest Guth and Walter Gordon would share it during the war.

Strohl's first combat jump was on D-Day. He was so overloaded that he could not put on a reserve 'chute. His plane was hit and Strohl saw the pilots coming out with the paratroopers. Strohl linked up with fellow Easy Company members "Shifty" Powers, "Buck" Taylor and Bill Kiehn upon landing, and the group joined with their own unit a few days later. During the Battle of Bloody Gulch outside Carentan, Strohl was wounded and was sent to Utah Beach, where his .45 and boots were stolen.[2]

On September 16, 1944, Strohl got a one-day pass from a doctor and hitched a ride to Aldbourne to rejoin Easy Company. He ran into Captain Herbert Sobel. Knowing that Strohl went AWOL, Sobel gave him a ride on his jeep. One day later, Strohl made another combat jump for Operation Market Garden, although he was "weak as a pussy cat". On 5 October 1944, while Easy Company was defending "The Island", Strohl and several others were chosen for a patrol mission, which ran into German troops and was attacked; Strohl was wounded and his radio was destroyed.

Strohl participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. When Easy Company first got into Bastogne, Colonel Robert Sink ordered Edward Shames to find out where the enemy was. Shames, Strohl and Earl McClung went down a road and saw vague shapes in the distance that looked kind of like haystacks, but sounded like tanks. When the fog lifted they realized that the shapes were indeed those of German tanks, 19 of them.[3]

Strohl fought with Easy Company until the end of the war. While in Germany, Albert Kesselring, a German Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall, came to Strohl and demanded to talk to a high rank officer. Lieutenant Shames came and took Kesselring's Czech pistol. He wanted to give it to Strohl, but Strohl rejected as he thought he did not deserve it.[3]

Band of Brothers

Strohl was not included in the Band of Brothers TV miniseries, apart from briefly appearing as himself at the beginning of the first episode, Currahee; nonetheless, he appeared in its companion documentary, We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company.[4] In the TV miniseries, the incident of Strohl going AWOL to rejoin Easy Company before Operation Market Garden was reproduced, except that Strohl's role was replaced by Robert 'Popeye' Wynn. It was actually true that Wynn rejoined Easy Company from hospital shortly before Operation Market Garden, but he was given light duty papers (which he threw away). He did not run into Sobel.

References

  1. ↑ p.34, Alexander
  2. ↑ p.253, Alexander, 2005
  3. 1 2 Edward Shames's Biography
  4. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1091378/ Rod Strohl's IMDB page

Bibliography

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