Page 4 - Gold Star Sons of Georgetown Prep

PRIVATE FIRST CLASS WILLIAM A. “BILL” ROBERTS, JR. ’43
CONTINUED
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GEORGETOWN PREPARATORY SCHOOL
BILL ROBERTS, dressed in a dark sweatshirt in the left foreground of the photo leads Company C of the Georgetown Prep Victory Corps during the 1942-43 school year.
Georgetown Prep Victory Corps. The Corps consisted of four companies (A through D) under a senior captain. Bill,
a broad-shouldered, 6’ tall scholar-athlete easily recognizable on campus with his red hair and owlish, wire-rimmed glasses, served as captain of Company C.
That Bill would take the lead in running the commando course and drilling fellow students came as no surprise to classmates, administrators, or teachers. His father, a veteran of World War I, spent the first 3 years of WWII as a Lieutenant Colonel with the 13th Air Force in the South Pacific. So
Bill, like so many other sons, was highly motivated to prepare himself to follow in his father’s footsteps.
In addition, from his earliest days at Prep, Bill had shown himself a leader. He ranked third in his class academically and planned to matriculate at either M.I.T. or Georgetown University with an eye to aeronautical engineering. The school yearbook, The Cupola, playfully opined “That if the paper shortage should become acute, Bill would be unaffected with his trunkful of honor cards.” It also noted his eagerness to “enter into any form of activity,” including football, soccer, and track. (He ran the grueling 880 yard dash, relays, and competed in the broad jump.) A deeply spiritual young man, Bill also served as the prefect of the day students’ Sodality and as an altar boy in the St. John Berchmans Society. He wrote
for school newspaper, The Little Hoya, and was a member of The Cupola staff and the student council.
“Bill has won the admiration and good fellowship of all who knew him,” the yearbook concluded. And Bill’s sense of commitment to what he perceived as his duty was one of his most admired qualities. So it came as no surprise that, while still a senior, Bill, with the permission of his parents, enlisted in the United States Army.
After graduation, Bill was able to attend summer classes
at Georgetown University until he was called to active duty
in September 1943. He was eventually assigned to the 405th Infantry Regiment of the 102d Infantry Division in the European Theater of Operations. Bill’s division, which had not yet seen combat, arrived in France on September 23, 1944, and, after a short period of training, moved to the German/Dutch border where Hitler’s forces were offering fierce resistance
to the Allies. Inexperienced infantrymen such as Bill, were especially vulnerable in that bloody setting.
On November 29, the 102nd began an attack aimed
at the Roer River through the German towns of Weiz, Flossdorf, and Linnich. Four days later, on December 1, 1944, Bill, by now 191⁄2 years old and a private first class, was reported missing in action. On December 14, his body was identified simply as “Casualty: Battle”; “Causative Agent: Unknown.” Since his days with the Prep Victory Corps, Bill had sought to contribute to the nation’s “great undertaking”: victory over the Axis powers. He did so valiantly at the cost of his life five months short of VE Day. The youngest of Prep’s WWII fatalities, Bill was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. **
**William’s brother, John A. Roberts, was a Prep
senior at the time of William’s death. He graduated from Georgetown University and then became a pilot in the U.
S. Navy in 1949. On October 17, 1952, while stationed in England, Lt. Roberts was killed in a traffic accident. His parents and two sisters once again had to return to Arlington National Cemetery to bury another son and brother. The Wills-Roberts Medal, awarded every year to that Prep senior graduate who has shown the greatest academic improvement over his four years at Prep, was established by the Class of ’45 to honor John, and classmate Captain James Washington Wills, Jr., United States Air Force. Both men had died in the service of their country during the Korean War. H