Strohl, Roderick George “Rod”, born 24-06-1922, in Fogelsville, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of a car dealer and he grew up in Fogelsville, to Stanley Alfred Strohl (1895–1968)



Roderick had two sisters and two brothers, Mildred S. Strohl Bleiler (1918–2001), Lorraine Mae, Strohl Haines (1920–1988),




and Kenneth Elmer Strohl (1927-2018). Roderick was since 1945 married with Dorothy Mae, born Dankel Strohl (1922–2021)
Roderick in 1945 married Dorothy Mae, born Dankel, Strohl (1922–2021).
Roderick enlisted and volunteered for paratroopers with two of his friends, fellow Pennsylvanian Dutch speakers Forrest Guth
and Carl Fenstermaker,
in Philadelphia in 1942. They were assigned to 506 Easy Company
and became three of the 140 original Toccoa men of the unit. All of them survived the war. Strohl had a camera with him in Europe and his comrades Forrest Guth and Walter Scott “Smokey” Gordon
Jr.
would share it during the war. “Smokey” Gordon died age 77, on 19-04-1997 in Biloxi, Mississippi, US in Pass Christian, Mississippi after suffering a stroke in his sleep.
Strohl’s first combat jump was on D-Day. He was so overloaded that he could not put on a reserve chute. His plane got hit, and Strohl saw the pilots coming out with the paratroopers. Strohl linked up with Shifty Powers,
Taylor Jr. Amos “Buck”
and Kiehn, William Francis “Bill”
upon landing and the group joined with their own unit a few days later. During the Battle of Bloody Gulch outside Carentan, Strohl was wounded
and was sent to Utah Beach, where his .45 and his boots were stolen.
On September 16 Strohl got a one-day pass from a doctor, and hitched a ride to Aldbourne to rejoin Easy Company. He ran into the not populair Captain Herbert Maxwell Sobel Jr.
Knowing that Strohl went AWOL, Sobel gave Strohl a ride on his jeep. One day later, Strohl made another combat jump for Operation Market Garden, although he was ‘weak as a pussy cat’. In 05-10-1944, Strohl was chosen for a patrol mission. The patrol ran into German troops and was attacked. Strohl was wounded again and his radio was blown away.
Strohl participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. When Easy Company first got into Bastogne,
Colonel Sink, Robert Frederick “Bounding Bob”
ordered Colonel Edward David “Ed” Shames
to find out where the enemy was. Ed Shames survived the war and passed away 03-12-2021 (aged 99 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S.
Shames, Strohl and McClung, Earl Ervin “Mac” “One Lung”
went down a road and saw vague shapes in the distance that looked kind of like haystacks, but sounded like tanks. When the fogs lifted they realized that the shapes were indeed those of tanks. There were 19 of them. Strohl fought with Easy Company until the end of the war. While in Germany, Kesselring, Albert “Smiling Albert”,
a German Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall, came to Strohl and demanded to talk to a high rank. Lieutenant Shames came, and took Kesselring’s Czech pistol. He wanted to give it to Strohl, but Strohl thought he did not deserve it. Roderick “Rod”survived the war and went home in 1945.
Death and burial ground of Strohl, Roderick George “Rod”.



Strohl died on 02-12-2019 in Orefield, Pennsylvania, at the age of 97, and is buried at the Fogelsville Union Cemetery, in Fogelsville, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1027 Church Street Fogelsville, Pennsylvania 18051 United States.

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