Roy Arthur Van Horn

U.S. Army •1942-1945 •World War II

Their Story

Enlisted in Army in December 1942 at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Completed basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He deployed to Algiers, Africa and then to Sicily as an Army Ranger with Colonel William Darby’s Rangers, 1st Scout of the 1st Ranger Division. Roy was captured in Italy by Germans in January 1944 and sent to Stalag II B near the Poland border in what is known today as Iran. Liberation came in May 1945 for Roy. He received an honorable discharge on the 18th of October, 1945.

“On coming back to the United States, he received a 30 day furlough, the first since he went to basic training. He got off the train in Brainerd, Minnesota alone since no one knew he was coming back. Roy began hitch hiking and was picked up by a mail carrier, who took him home. The same mail carrier that had delivered the telegrams from the War Department to his parents, telling them that their son was missing in action and later that he was a prisoner of war held by the Germans”