Rome Stephens joined the Army in June 1940, four months before the Army instituted the draft.
In less than two years, he’d risen to the rank of staff sergeant. He married Edna Nelson and then headed to Scotland to train with British commandos.
He returned ready — and even eager — to fight the war.
In June 1943, Stephens learned that his unit, the 4th Infantry Division, was deploying overseas. But he got some frustrating news too: He’d been selected to attend Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning and would be staying behind.
Stephens finished OCS and joined the 82nd Airborne Division.
“I was in jump school while they were in Normandy and a lot of people got beat up over there,” says Stephens, now 87. “And then they came back needing replacements real rapidly.”
In September 1944, more than four years after enlisting in the Army, Stephens joined the fight. The second lieutenant led a machine gun platoon during Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne operation ever. It involved nearly 35,000 troops, with about 20,000 descending by parachute and the rest in gliders. He lost 18 men.
While Stephens was fighting in Germany, his wife was working as a welder in the Jacksonville, Fla., shipyards.
“People just went to work,” Stephens says. “That became a beginning of the women not having to stay in the home all the time.”
E-Mail
Print
@Nyx.CommentBody@