Dobry Trained French Troops to
Use Gliders
In Italy
Soldier Recalls
Huge Odds
Fighting Nazis
ST. MARY’S TODAY
The Allied forces marked V-E Day on May 8, 1945,
signaling victory in the
European Theater of World War II, 60 years ago.
ST. MARY’S TODAY seeks to honor the veterans living
in the tri-county area, spotlighting
experiences they recall when they laid
their lives on the line and the valiant efforts that shaped
the course of world
history and power. Nearly 400,000 American men, and women, were killed in
the
war and nearly double that number injured. At the high point, 16 million
American troops were over there.
This is the story of Maj. James W. Dobry, of the 36th
Engineer Combat Group.
“Oh, I ran into some of the
Hitler Youth,” said Dobry, 84, of Great Mills. “We knew what they
were up to,
and I didn’t want Hitler running this country.”
Dobry was born in Baltimore in November of 1920. The
family moved down to St. Mary’s County
after his mother became ill. His father
was an injured World War I veteran.
“There wasn’t much
opportunity down here,” he said. So, in 1939, he enlisted in the U.S. Army
and
became a member of the military division of the Army Corps of Engineers and
received
training at Fort Belvoir, a half hour south of Washington D.C. in
Virginia.
An effective leader, Dobry
quickly moved up the ranks and began training troops for deployment.
He was promoted to Sergeant
and began training troops in combat engineering in Plattsburg, NY.
During is
years stateside during the war, Dobry worked with troops at numerous bases,
including
in Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
He moved up the enlisted
ranks to 1st Sergeant, and after officer training he was commissioned
as a 2nd Lieutenant.
The combat engineering
training he administered involved infantry tactics as well as complex troop
movements, such has amphibious landings and river crossings.
“I wasn’t mean. I was
tough, because it had to be right,” he said of his time commanding men in
formation.
Before he “finally” landed
in Europe in about 1944, he told his commanding officer, “I gotta get
over there
and help.” The colonel replied: “You’re too valuable here, with the troops.”
When he finally did get
“over there” his unit landed in Anzio, south of Rome, “A very terrible place.”
He trained French troops to use gliders and to prepare for the landing in
southern France, including one of the most recognized invasions, the Normandy
landing.
“They were not true
gliders, sail planes.” They were towed by C-47’s with a long nylon line. When
released the crafts would float downward.
The gliders held guns and
up to 15 men and they basically crash-landed.
After Dobry was promoted to
Major, he was leading troops in Heilbronn, Germany. They were
attempting to move
troops across the Neckar River, tucked under the German Alps.
The engineer corps
constructed floating bridges and moved troops and tanks across under the
guise
of smoke screens, but the enemy was dropping mortars directly on the troops,
through the
smoke screen.
“Our guys were getting
murdered over there,” Dobry recalls. “It was the darn-est thing you ever
saw.”
He remembered a tank being
destroyed as soon as it reached middle of the crossing, instantly
sinking into
the river so only the top antennas were visible.
“The guys inside, they
didn’t have time to do anything.”
After a time, an
18-year-old woman pregnant with a Nazi officer’s baby was located among the
Allied troops relaying exact coordinates back to the enemy. The Army had not
cleared out all
civilians from the area.
Dobry was seriously injured
during that battle at the Neckar River.
“We got a regimen across
and then the Germans got really tough,” he said, noting that many,
many men were
lost.
He described it as
“something” crashing the jeep he was driving, and striking the left side of the
upper face. He was sure if it was from an explosion nearby, or a bullet or what
else.
“I remember waking up in
the hospital,” he said.
The scars are barely
visible now, at 84 years old, and he never lost use of his eye.
“I wasn’t banged up too
bad,” he said modestly.
The injury dislocated his
left eye, which required several surgeries, and plastic surgery to repair.
In
all, he was hospitalized for 13 to 14 months after the injury.
“When I woke up in the
hospital after it happened, this big ugly Army nurse said, ‘Do you know
what day
it is? It’s Friday the 13th’.”
After healing he “retired”
from the service. “I was an old man by then anyway,” at 23.
Dobry said the Americans
were sort of the underdogs going into the war.
“The German army was far
superior to ours in the beginning” The U.S. troops were using 37 mm
guns that
were nicknamed “pop guns” because the ordnance would pop, and bounce off German
tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, where using the multi-purpose 88 mm gun.
The size
denotes the diameter of the gun barrel.
While attached to the
French 1st Army, Dobry came across the German 6th SS
mountain division.
After a battle, Dobry came away with a souvenir from Hitler’s
elite army, an epaulet, or shoulder
decoration from a dead Nazi.
Crossing through France and
Germany, Dobry said he “went by some of the same areas my father
went in World
War I.”
As opposed to modern day
conflicts, Dobry, and all the American troops, knew exactly why they
were there.
As for today’s American youth, Dobry said he “sort of wonders” whether people
still understand the importance of World War II.
“I always say, read
history,” said Dobry, adding he just finished a book on the war titled 1942,
by
Winston Groom.
“We were tougher then.”
(Dobry died in 2006)
