James Dobry, Dead at 86
Builder, citizen activist, candidate, Veteran

James Dobry, a decorated veteran, with a rifle he used in WWII
ST. MARY'S TODAY photo

James Dobry died on Sunday, Sept. 10th after a recent illness.  Dobry, a prominent St. Mary's County builder and developer designed and built the Greenview Knolls community, including one of the area's first apartment complexes.  Much of the townhouse, single family home and duplex communities along Chancellors Run Road were developed by Dobry.  
In 1978 Dobry was an independent write-in candidate for St. Mary's Commissioner President who, with the support of the late Enterprise newspaper publisher Charlie Molitor, put on a strong effort to defeat Democrat George Aud in the general election.   Aud prevailed and was reelected.
Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Wednesday, Sept. 13th at 10 am at Holy Face Catholic Church in Great Mills. 
Last year, Dobry was profiled in an article in ST. MARY'S TODAY as part of a series dealing with local veterans.

Dobry Trained French Troops to Use Gliders In Italy
Soldier Recalls Huge Odds Fighting Nazis

By Sean Rice

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.

The 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 36^th 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 1^st Sergeant, and after officer training he was commissioned as a 2^nd 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 regiment 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 not 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 13^th’.”

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 1^st Army, Dobry came across the German 6^th 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.”