Sixty-six-year VFW member recalls his World War II service

Roland “Rolly” Childs was working his folks’ farm near Grand Rapids, Minn., when the radio broke from the regularly scheduled broadcast to report a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The news was incomprehensible. How could America, so mighty, be under attack? A combination of shock and anger filled the 21-year-old.

Having recently returned from two years with the Civilian Conservation Corps planting trees, doing roadwork and putting out fires, Childs was open for direction. A few days later, with a pal from Duluth, he applied to join the Marines. His buddy got in, but a doctor found Childs’ right eye too weak. No thanks, kid.

Three weeks later, Childs received his first notice of draft.

“I was excited,” Childs, 93, said.

Three months later Childs was a member of the Army Air Corps. His test scores showed an aptitude for mechanical work, and he was sent to Airplane Mechanical School in Chanute Field, Ill. After another six months of schooling, Childs found himself in AAvon Park, Fla., with the 336th Bombardment Group as a reserve. In February 1944, the 344th was preparing to leave for Stansted Air Base in London. When one of its members could not make the trip, Childs filled the spot.

He remembers being in England on D-Day. Three months later he was transferred to an overtaken German airbase 30 miles north of Paris. It was there he learned of the Battle of the Bulge. Times were tense. The Germans were breaking through, and he feared they may be headed his way.

Childs never saw battle during his time. His job was to “keep planes going so someone could take down Hitler,” and he did so with pride. In March 1945, he was transferred to Belgium following the German surrender.

“They started sending fellas with 85 points home at that time,” Childs said, referencing the Advanced Service Rating Score system that determined servicemen’s eligibility to return from battle. “I had 83.”

Childs was scheduled to go to the Pacific with a Douglas A-26 group when the Japanese surrendered. On his way home, Childs spoke with a pilot who learned where he was from. The pilot had flown with a guy from Grand Rapids.

“The fella had married my neighbor’s daughter,” Childs said. “She was a good friend of mine. It was sad when the pilot told me he had been shot down by the Germans near the end of the war.”

Childs landed in Boston on Oct. 10, 1945, and was honorably discharged Oct. 21. He made his way back to the family farm in Minnesota, planning to forget the war and get on living the way he had.

Jobs were hard to find back home, so Childs left to visit his brother, Lee, in Libby on February 1, 1946. What was meant to be a two week trip turned into a permanent relocation.

“My brother had a job with J. Neils Lumber,” Childs said. “I asked for a job and the man asked if I was a veteran. I told him yes, and he said I could start tomorrow.”

Thus started a 38-year career in the sawmill as a green lumber stacker. Today, Childs helps with finances at the VFW, of which he has been a member for 66 years. For the last 13 years he has served as the Honor Guard chaplain, reciting the same prepared words again and again as his peers from The Greatest Generation are buried.

“As comrade after comrade departs, we march on with the ranks grown thinner,” he said.

Every Veterans Day he takes pride knowing he was part of the war effort. He is glad to have served. Asked what he learned from his war years, Childs looks down, stacks his newspaper into proper shape with numb, arthritic fingers and thinks.

“I learned we had a country that could take care of itself,” Childs said.