NONFICTION NOVEL*HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY*genealogy
WALK IN THE BOOTS OF A REAL RITCHIE BOY
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Book 1 currently in editing stage * Click TEO
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Album of My Service: Teo Rogers' Experience as a Ritchie Boy and Interrogator on the Front Lines of WW2 as Revealed Through His Photography
MI-NCO Theodore Rogers (a.k.a. Teo Rosenberg) (January 17, 1921- November 1971). In 1937, Teo — a sixteen-year old boy of Jewish ancestry — left Rosenthal, Germany for NYC, unaccompanied, to escape Nazism. After entering service on 2/24/1943, G-2 (Military Intelligence) detached Teo from Engineers Amphibian Command Camp to retrain as a Military Intelligence NCO (a "Ritchie Boy"). Days before deployment, he naturalized. On the naturalization certificate, he anglicized his name. Thereafter, he was assigned to an "IPW team" (Interrogator of Prisoners of War) and G-2 attached him to the 11th Regiment of the 5th Infantry Division.
As an "Interrogator of PWs", Teo gathered intelligence which commanders utilized to avoid casualties. Teo persuaded PWs (Prisoners of War) to divulge enemy positions and weaknesses. While Teo carried a carbine and pistol, his main weapons were his wit and cigarettes.
Teo saved lives by persuading the encircled enemy to surrender. At Metz, December 1, 1944, Teo and his team Captain entered Fort St. Quentin to negotiate its surrender. In the Ruhr Pocket and Czechoslovakia, Teo parleyed with Wehrmacht and Panzer Commanders. He aided Yiddush speaking survivors of the S.S. "Death March" in Volary, Czechoslovakia. Sergeant Rogers also helped convict War Criminals at Nuremberg.
If you would like to become a beta-reader of Teo's story as he navigates Nazi Germany, his missions, his trials and tribulations, then please click the contacts menu button or scroll down to the contacts page.
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Meet the author, Teo's son
Teo Rogers is my dad. I lost him when I was ten years old. I have always held on to particular, vivid memories and yearned to know him better. Regarding his role in World War 2 (WII) with the U.S. army, mom told me time and again he had a desk job. On Father’s Day, 37 years later, my daughter, an aspiring history major, shared with me her discovery that her grandpa was one of the “Ritchie Boys”. She and my son encouraged me to embark on an improbable hunt to learn the truth about my father’s past.
By persevering on a journey through 10 years of research into my dad’s real role in WWII, I gained precious insight into who he was. Over 200 mysteries are solved. I hunted down clues which often sprouted into six more to hunt down. I hunted down people he served along sidewith, in Europe, and I met experts in the military, I consulted museum curators, I drove through every inch of Continental Europe that I figured out he traveled through. I met generous people abroad and here in America that gave of their knowledge of war-time circumstances. I pieced together the puzzle that is his storied service as a Ritchie Boy.
The result is a narrative which allows the reader to live the days in the life of a Ritchie Boy, as he executes a pivotal and life-sparing role in WW2, as a matter of duty. Furthermore, in the book, I integrated, at a granular level, the lives of the 5th Infantry soldiers as together, they navigated their dangerous missions. Still further, I bring new light to historical events and elucidate events and people not yet recognized or known at all. Witness accounts and vignettes will bring to new insight to relatives of the brave deceased, both those in the story and those in other campaigns. And for those who have an appreciation for what the "greatest generation" did for world freedom but no direct connection to a warrior, the narrative provides lessons worth contemplating and witnessing vicariously. Teo’s Ritchie Boy story is “...more fully documented than any other I’ve seen,” declared Dr. Guy Stern, Ritchie Boy historian and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Wayne State University.
The storytelling is centered around over 200 photographs which suddenly surfaced after 50 years. Only four had inscriptions on the back. The remainder were total mysteries. The final manuscript will include the incredible journey of discovery and how it unfolded.
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