Page 18 - Georgetown Preparatory School Alumnews Winter 2021

Accelerated seniors of the Class of 1944 study English with Rev. Kelvin T. “Scotty” MacKavanagh
GOLD STAR SONS OF GEORGETOWN PREP
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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
16 GEORGETOWN PREPARATORY SCHOOL
Every afternoon included a drill period and completion of the “commando course.”
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.
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