Roderick Strohl

Staff Sergeant Roderick Strohl (born June 24, 1922) is a former non-commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division of the during World War II. Strohl was one of the 140 original Toccoa men of Easy Company.
Youth
Strohl was a son of a car dealer and grew up in Philadelphia.
Military Service
Strohl enlisted and volunteered for the paratroopers with two of his friends, fellow German Americans and Pennsylvanian Dutch speakers Forrest Guth and Carl Fenstermaker, in Philadelphia in 1942. They were assigned to 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 Gordon would share it during the war.
Strohl's first combat jump was on D-Day. He became so overloaded with gear that he couldn't put on a reserve chute. His plane got hit, and Strohl saw the two pilots jumping out with the paratroopers. Strohl linked up with some fellow Easy Company members 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 boots were stolen.
On September 16, 1944, Strohl got a one-day pass from a doctor and hitched a ride to Aldbourne to rejoin Easy Company. He ran into Captain Herbert Sobel. Knowing that Strohl went AWOL, Sobel gave him 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". On 5 October 1944, while Easy Company was defending "The Island", Strohl and several others were chosen for a patrol mission, which ran into German troops and was attacked; Strohl was wounded and his radio was destroyed.
Strohl participated in the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne. When Easy Company first got into Bastogne, Colonel Robert Sink ordered Edward Shames to find out where the enemy was. Shames, Strohl and Earl McClung went down a road and saw vague shapes in the distance. The shapes seemingly looked like haystacks, the sounds of engines could be heard and when the shapes came out from the light fog it turned out to be 19 heavily armored German tanks. Strohl later participated in the assault on the town of Foy without injury.
Band of Brothers
Strohl was not included in the Band of Brothers TV miniseries, apart from briefly appearing as himself at the beginning of the first episode, Currahee; nonetheless, he appeared in its companion documentary, We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company. In the TV miniseries, the incident of Strohl going AWOL to rejoin Easy Company before Operation Market Garden was reproduced, except that Strohl's role was replaced by . It was actually true that Wynn rejoined Easy Company from hospital shortly before Operation Market Garden, but he was given light duty papers (which he threw away). He did not run into Sobel.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu