Sergeant Val J. Roberts and Kay

Creator

Preview

Identifier

20037091

Description

Sergeant Val J. Roberts is home with his daughter, Kay after sixteen months overseas. He is is in uniform and holding Kay, who's wearing a dress and bows in her hair. Roberts has a number of ribbons or awards in view.(clipping)"Little Safety for Medical Crews, Sergeant FindsMedical corpsmen, who go in with the infantry waves to tread and evacuate the wounded but are not allowed to participate in combat under the Geneva Convention, find little protection in their Red Cross insignia.That was the statement made Thursday by Sgt. Val J. Roberts, a technician third grade in the medical detachment of the 36th Division, who is spending a furlough in Fort Worth after 16 months of overseas service. Roberts, who is 26, was in combat service in Italy and saw medical corpsmen killed in action thereThree Killed in 20 Minutes.'Three of my men were killed within 20 minutes one morning,' he said.The Germans are 'rough and tough fighters and hard to whip,' he said, adding that he would not expose himself to their fire, despite his insignia, unless it was to aid a wounded man.Lt. Gen Mark Clark, commander of the 5th Army, personally decorated Roberts with the Silver Star for gallantry in action and sent him an autographed copy of the news photo made of the ceremony.'Clark is a soldier as well as a general,' Roberts said warmly. He declared the general had praised the medical soldiers and described them 'as having a hard time and not much credit.'Was in Africa.Roberts was in North Africa when the first units of the 5th Army were being formed. He did outpost work there and landed with the first waves at Salerno.Later he participated in the Cassino campaign and the battle for Rome.The citation accompanying the Silver Star award states that while in a defensive position subjected to heavy artillery fire on Mt. Maggiore, Italy, Roberts began to treat the wounded.A shell landed near him knocking him off his feet but 'although in a dazed condition he continued to administer first aid to his wounded companions until he was wounded in the head by a shell fragment and had to be evacuated.'The sergeant was called into service in November, 1940, as a member of the Texas National Guard. His wife and their 20-month-old daughter, Kay, who was three days old when he last saw her, reside at 2800 McKinley. A sister, Mrs. L. L. Kincaid, resides at 2316 Hillcrest." Published Star-Telegram Morn. Aug. 4, 1944.

Archival Date

1944-08-03

Collection Name

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection

Collection Number

AR406-6-619

Original Format

Negatives, Black & White

File Format

JPG

Rights

Rights held by The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. Any use of content downloaded or printed from this page is limited to non-commercial personal or educational use, including fair use as directed by U.S. copyright laws. For more information or for reproduction requests, please contact UTA Special Collections by emailing spcoref@uta.edu.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Subjects

Dresses; Military ribbons; Military insignia; Silver Star (military award); Military decorations; Military uniforms; Toddlers; Roberts, Val J. (Sgt.); Roberts, Kay