Whitehouse Native’s World War II Experiences Detailed In New Book
BY KAREN BERGER — MIRROR REPORTER
It’s been 60 years since the late Rolland Studer left his native Whitehouse, but details of his World War II experiences are featured in a book now available at the Whitehouse Library.
From Farm to the Front: Following the Steps of Rollie Studer During WW II is a self-published book by Alan Studer, Rollie’s brother.
Impressed with Rollie’s detailed journals from when he served with the Army 202 Engineer Company B from March 1943 until December 1945, Al thought for years about writing a book.
“Rollie had a day-to-day journal,” Alan said. “But on the way back home aboard the ship, the journal got stolen.”
Al, who now lives in Colorado, was 3 years old when Rollie graduated at the top of his class from Whitehouse High School in 1942. They were two of Edwin and Bernice Studer’s nine children.
“Rollie was next to the oldest. I didn’t know anything about his time in the service. He never told me about it,” Al said.
Most of what he learned after his brother’s 2009 death was gleaned from interviewing family and friends, from a 1980s Delta Atlas article and the Veterans History Project, in which veterans are recorded sharing their experiences.
Rollie was working at Page Dairy in Whitehouse when he got his draft notice. Thinking he could control which branch of the military he’d go into, Rollie signed himself up. Instead, it bumped him up to head out earlier – with the corps of engineers instead of the more dangerous infantry.
An outdoorsman who grew up hunting, Rollie did well on the rifle range part of basic training and qualified as a sharpshooter, with a score tying for sixth out of 204 recruits. But while Rollie was trained to use firearms, the company’s main job was to learn how to build a variety of bridges in all types of situations.
After training stateside, the company headed overseas in October 1943. Seas were rough and nearly all the 5,000 soldiers aboard were seasick.
The men stayed in the British Isles. In Ireland, they constructed quonset huts that were heated to dry parachutes to prevent mold, and trained in bridge building and weapons. One day, Gen. George S. Patton came to inspect the troops and give a speech.
In June 1944, the B Company headed for Normandy, arriving eight days after D-Day.
The book details how the B Company built bridges and roads throughout Europe, crushing stone for roads and using their own sawmill.
“At one place in Belgium we put up a bridge and later blew it up during the Battle of the Bulge, and later built another one in the same place,” Rollie explained in his own words.
In Carentan, France, one night, they used rubber mallets to pound in the steel pins, because the Germans were shooting at any noise.
“We were out ahead of the infantry and armor, building bridges so they could advance. We could build a steel Bailey Bridge in the dark in three hours,” Rollie wrote.
The winter of 1944 was one of the coldest on record. Frostbite took fingers and toes.
“It got as cold as 20 degrees below zero,” Rollie recalled.
In 1945, the company set a record for constructing the longest bridge in the shortest time over the Rhine River. In what was estimated to be a 48-hour project, the B Company put up a 1,152-foot pontoon bridge in six hours and 20 minutes – while under enemy fire.
While taking a lunch break that day, Rollie was shot in the back on the cartridge belt, tearing up the skin on his back.
“It could have been serious, but it wasn’t,” he recalled. He was told to report to the medics anyway. Rollie later received a Purple Heart, given to those injured or killed while serving.
During the month or so that followed, his company spent time in small towns in Western Germany. The Nazis surrendered on May 8, 1945, but his company didn’t find out until May 12.
After returning to the U.S., Rollie married Wilma Frost and they moved to the Delta area, where he farmed and worked for Plaskon, which became Allied Chemical.
Upon completing the book, Al made about 40 copies for family and friends – including Rollie’s widow, daughter Marcia Ricker and son Gene Studer.
For years after the war, Rollie met with members of the No. 202 Engineer Company.
Now that he’s retired and completed the project, Al – who graduated from Anthony Wayne High School in 1957 – said he may do research about his wife’s three uncles, brothers who all enlisted in the Army within a year of each other during World War II.
To check out a copy of the book, visit the Whitehouse Library, 10651 Waterville St., Whitehouse, or call (419) 877-9088.