Will [NOT William] was the first child and only son of Clarence Rogers and Caroline Schafer. He grew up a streetwise kid in Denver. As a boy he sold newspapers for a time on the streets, once receiving a gold coin by mistake in the twilight. His mother took that badly needed coin. In the late 1930s he and his friend Johnnie Maurer both worked for Yoelin Brothers Mercantile Company, delivering produce to hotels and restaurants in Denver. They worked six days a week and "volunteered" to wash the trucks on their own time on Sundays. That didn't stop one desperate soul from popping in, pointing to Will, and saying, "I'll work for less than you're paying him." He kept his job, in spite of those tough times. Others he roomed with as a young man were George "Bud" Coyle, and (future brother-in-law) Joe Rego.
In 1940 he first married Winifred Hopkirk in a small white church in the Barnum neighborhood of Denver. She filed Nevada divorce papers in early 1945, while he was returning from overseas in WWII. A personal letter from Winnie to Will at that time showed they parted amicably.
He had basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and some time later also had specialized training at the Fort Pierce [FL] Naval Amphibious Training Base. Being in his mid- to late 20s, he found himself being called the "old man." He recalled how while aboard ship one December, he could hear homesick sailors quietly crying in nooks and crannies of the ship, while "White Christmas" played on the loudspeakers.
He was a Motor Machinist Mate (a "motor mac") aboard landing craft at Sicily and Salerno as part of the Eighth Amphibious Force, and Operation Overlord at Utah Beach at Normandy. At least two of his landing craft were sunk, and his unit received a citation for bravery while under fire. A 1945 newspaper in Davenport IA stated he'd been in four major invasions, so the fourth must have been Operation Torch at French Africa. To deal with the tedium, he volunteered for Shore Patrol duty while in Morocco. He said once his craft took a direct hit (perhaps at Salerno) and he was thrown from it. While in the water another craft was about to run him over. He dived and emerged with slashes from the propeller in the "Mae West" he was wearing. Perhaps it was at Salerno that he witnessed a black flyer (a Redtail?) who was very angry for being shot down by our own trigger-happy gunners. The pilot claimed he'd just had a German in his sights.
He reported aboard LST-58 April 19, 1944, and was still assigned to it on April 30th near Slapton Sands, Great Britain. On the 28th hundreds of servicemen were killed during a German raid on a practice rehearsal for Normandy called "Exercise Tiger." However, he never spoke about that event. It's possible that he and others with Mediterranean experience were left off that practice convoy. That is not certain.
He said that, at Normandy while helping pick up bodies from the invasion beaches, he was okay until he saw a gun barrel bent in a "U" shape from having been wrapped around someone's body. That really bothered him. He later got so bored in the days after landing soldiers at Utah and ferrying wounded troops out to waiting ships, that he and some buddies started up the Seine "on their way to Paris." Angry American troops on a (pontoon?) bridge stopped them because there were armed Germans just a bit further upstream. He once said he had made it to Motor Machinist Mate 1st Class, but after a night of too much celebration, he was busted back to 2nd Class.
While estranged from his wife, he had met Margaret Allen in 1942 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and fathered a son named William Alden, born in 1943. After the war she divorced her abusive first husband whom she had married after the birth, and she and Will married in December of 1945 at Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had three more children, with their daughter Judy dying as a toddler. They moved from Denver to Brighton, Colorado, where they lived much of their lives together, first on the north edge of Brighton and later on seven rural acres near Barr Lake. Having an eighth grade education and a GED, he was proud as punch when for one semester all three of his boys were enrolled at Colorado State University.
Friends with whom he and Margaret had many good experiences were John and Jerry Maurer of north Denver, George and C___ Scott of Thornton, and Don and Peggy Ingersoll of Silt, Colorado. Brighton friends included George and Midge Ott and John and Mary Matsuno.
He loved to camp, hunt, and fish in the Rockies. A favorite family fishing campsite was the Horseshoe Campground on the Williams Fork. In the 1950s a Brighton sport club enlisted him to become a game warden, thinking it would be good PR. His warden's badge visible in his billfold once got him out of a traffic ticket. However, he was quickly kicked out as a club member after the first two people he ticketed were club members duck hunting before sunrise! Fall deer hunting amid the golden "quakies" invigorated him, and he kept the family freezer well stocked.
After the war he declined a machinist job at a railroad shop in North Denver, because he didn't want to work indoors so much. Ironically even to Will, he then spent about twenty years indoors as a warehouse foreman for Bankers Warehouse (owned by the kind Phil Milstein) in Denver and Brighton, and a year or two for Fashion Bar Design. He lastly worked for Reservco/Reinforced Earth in Commerce City.
He and Margaret were killed instantly on the south side of Brighton when their car was broadsided by a semi-truck hauling produce to Denver, driven by Larry Dean McFarland of Greeley, who ran a red light. The force of the crash sent their car 300' sideways down the highway. In the two weeks before their fatal crash, each individually told their middle son that they would not know what to do without the other. They had both been eagerly looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild, six weeks afterward. They also never knew their two granddaughters, born several years later. They will be forever missed.
In 1940 he first married Winifred Hopkirk in a small white church in the Barnum neighborhood of Denver. She filed Nevada divorce papers in early 1945, while he was returning from overseas in WWII. A personal letter from Winnie to Will at that time showed they parted amicably.
He had basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and some time later also had specialized training at the Fort Pierce [FL] Naval Amphibious Training Base. Being in his mid- to late 20s, he found himself being called the "old man." He recalled how while aboard ship one December, he could hear homesick sailors quietly crying in nooks and crannies of the ship, while "White Christmas" played on the loudspeakers.
He was a Motor Machinist Mate (a "motor mac") aboard landing craft at Sicily and Salerno as part of the Eighth Amphibious Force, and Operation Overlord at Utah Beach at Normandy. At least two of his landing craft were sunk, and his unit received a citation for bravery while under fire. A 1945 newspaper in Davenport IA stated he'd been in four major invasions, so the fourth must have been Operation Torch at French Africa. To deal with the tedium, he volunteered for Shore Patrol duty while in Morocco. He said once his craft took a direct hit (perhaps at Salerno) and he was thrown from it. While in the water another craft was about to run him over. He dived and emerged with slashes from the propeller in the "Mae West" he was wearing. Perhaps it was at Salerno that he witnessed a black flyer (a Redtail?) who was very angry for being shot down by our own trigger-happy gunners. The pilot claimed he'd just had a German in his sights.
He reported aboard LST-58 April 19, 1944, and was still assigned to it on April 30th near Slapton Sands, Great Britain. On the 28th hundreds of servicemen were killed during a German raid on a practice rehearsal for Normandy called "Exercise Tiger." However, he never spoke about that event. It's possible that he and others with Mediterranean experience were left off that practice convoy. That is not certain.
He said that, at Normandy while helping pick up bodies from the invasion beaches, he was okay until he saw a gun barrel bent in a "U" shape from having been wrapped around someone's body. That really bothered him. He later got so bored in the days after landing soldiers at Utah and ferrying wounded troops out to waiting ships, that he and some buddies started up the Seine "on their way to Paris." Angry American troops on a (pontoon?) bridge stopped them because there were armed Germans just a bit further upstream. He once said he had made it to Motor Machinist Mate 1st Class, but after a night of too much celebration, he was busted back to 2nd Class.
While estranged from his wife, he had met Margaret Allen in 1942 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and fathered a son named William Alden, born in 1943. After the war she divorced her abusive first husband whom she had married after the birth, and she and Will married in December of 1945 at Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had three more children, with their daughter Judy dying as a toddler. They moved from Denver to Brighton, Colorado, where they lived much of their lives together, first on the north edge of Brighton and later on seven rural acres near Barr Lake. Having an eighth grade education and a GED, he was proud as punch when for one semester all three of his boys were enrolled at Colorado State University.
Friends with whom he and Margaret had many good experiences were John and Jerry Maurer of north Denver, George and C___ Scott of Thornton, and Don and Peggy Ingersoll of Silt, Colorado. Brighton friends included George and Midge Ott and John and Mary Matsuno.
He loved to camp, hunt, and fish in the Rockies. A favorite family fishing campsite was the Horseshoe Campground on the Williams Fork. In the 1950s a Brighton sport club enlisted him to become a game warden, thinking it would be good PR. His warden's badge visible in his billfold once got him out of a traffic ticket. However, he was quickly kicked out as a club member after the first two people he ticketed were club members duck hunting before sunrise! Fall deer hunting amid the golden "quakies" invigorated him, and he kept the family freezer well stocked.
After the war he declined a machinist job at a railroad shop in North Denver, because he didn't want to work indoors so much. Ironically even to Will, he then spent about twenty years indoors as a warehouse foreman for Bankers Warehouse (owned by the kind Phil Milstein) in Denver and Brighton, and a year or two for Fashion Bar Design. He lastly worked for Reservco/Reinforced Earth in Commerce City.
He and Margaret were killed instantly on the south side of Brighton when their car was broadsided by a semi-truck hauling produce to Denver, driven by Larry Dean McFarland of Greeley, who ran a red light. The force of the crash sent their car 300' sideways down the highway. In the two weeks before their fatal crash, each individually told their middle son that they would not know what to do without the other. They had both been eagerly looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild, six weeks afterward. They also never knew their two granddaughters, born several years later. They will be forever missed.
Will [NOT William] was the first child and only son of Clarence Rogers and Caroline Schafer. He grew up a streetwise kid in Denver. As a boy he sold newspapers for a time on the streets, once receiving a gold coin by mistake in the twilight. His mother took that badly needed coin. In the late 1930s he and his friend Johnnie Maurer both worked for Yoelin Brothers Mercantile Company, delivering produce to hotels and restaurants in Denver. They worked six days a week and "volunteered" to wash the trucks on their own time on Sundays. That didn't stop one desperate soul from popping in, pointing to Will, and saying, "I'll work for less than you're paying him." He kept his job, in spite of those tough times. Others he roomed with as a young man were George "Bud" Coyle, and (future brother-in-law) Joe Rego.
In 1940 he first married Winifred Hopkirk in a small white church in the Barnum neighborhood of Denver. She filed Nevada divorce papers in early 1945, while he was returning from overseas in WWII. A personal letter from Winnie to Will at that time showed they parted amicably.
He had basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and some time later also had specialized training at the Fort Pierce [FL] Naval Amphibious Training Base. Being in his mid- to late 20s, he found himself being called the "old man." He recalled how while aboard ship one December, he could hear homesick sailors quietly crying in nooks and crannies of the ship, while "White Christmas" played on the loudspeakers.
He was a Motor Machinist Mate (a "motor mac") aboard landing craft at Sicily and Salerno as part of the Eighth Amphibious Force, and Operation Overlord at Utah Beach at Normandy. At least two of his landing craft were sunk, and his unit received a citation for bravery while under fire. A 1945 newspaper in Davenport IA stated he'd been in four major invasions, so the fourth must have been Operation Torch at French Africa. To deal with the tedium, he volunteered for Shore Patrol duty while in Morocco. He said once his craft took a direct hit (perhaps at Salerno) and he was thrown from it. While in the water another craft was about to run him over. He dived and emerged with slashes from the propeller in the "Mae West" he was wearing. Perhaps it was at Salerno that he witnessed a black flyer (a Redtail?) who was very angry for being shot down by our own trigger-happy gunners. The pilot claimed he'd just had a German in his sights.
He reported aboard LST-58 April 19, 1944, and was still assigned to it on April 30th near Slapton Sands, Great Britain. On the 28th hundreds of servicemen were killed during a German raid on a practice rehearsal for Normandy called "Exercise Tiger." However, he never spoke about that event. It's possible that he and others with Mediterranean experience were left off that practice convoy. That is not certain.
He said that, at Normandy while helping pick up bodies from the invasion beaches, he was okay until he saw a gun barrel bent in a "U" shape from having been wrapped around someone's body. That really bothered him. He later got so bored in the days after landing soldiers at Utah and ferrying wounded troops out to waiting ships, that he and some buddies started up the Seine "on their way to Paris." Angry American troops on a (pontoon?) bridge stopped them because there were armed Germans just a bit further upstream. He once said he had made it to Motor Machinist Mate 1st Class, but after a night of too much celebration, he was busted back to 2nd Class.
While estranged from his wife, he had met Margaret Allen in 1942 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and fathered a son named William Alden, born in 1943. After the war she divorced her abusive first husband whom she had married after the birth, and she and Will married in December of 1945 at Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had three more children, with their daughter Judy dying as a toddler. They moved from Denver to Brighton, Colorado, where they lived much of their lives together, first on the north edge of Brighton and later on seven rural acres near Barr Lake. Having an eighth grade education and a GED, he was proud as punch when for one semester all three of his boys were enrolled at Colorado State University.
Friends with whom he and Margaret had many good experiences were John and Jerry Maurer of north Denver, George and C___ Scott of Thornton, and Don and Peggy Ingersoll of Silt, Colorado. Brighton friends included George and Midge Ott and John and Mary Matsuno.
He loved to camp, hunt, and fish in the Rockies. A favorite family fishing campsite was the Horseshoe Campground on the Williams Fork. In the 1950s a Brighton sport club enlisted him to become a game warden, thinking it would be good PR. His warden's badge visible in his billfold once got him out of a traffic ticket. However, he was quickly kicked out as a club member after the first two people he ticketed were club members duck hunting before sunrise! Fall deer hunting amid the golden "quakies" invigorated him, and he kept the family freezer well stocked.
After the war he declined a machinist job at a railroad shop in North Denver, because he didn't want to work indoors so much. Ironically even to Will, he then spent about twenty years indoors as a warehouse foreman for Bankers Warehouse (owned by the kind Phil Milstein) in Denver and Brighton, and a year or two for Fashion Bar Design. He lastly worked for Reservco/Reinforced Earth in Commerce City.
He and Margaret were killed instantly on the south side of Brighton when their car was broadsided by a semi-truck hauling produce to Denver, driven by Larry Dean McFarland of Greeley, who ran a red light. The force of the crash sent their car 300' sideways down the highway. In the two weeks before their fatal crash, each individually told their middle son that they would not know what to do without the other. They had both been eagerly looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild, six weeks afterward. They also never knew their two granddaughters, born several years later. They will be forever missed.
In 1940 he first married Winifred Hopkirk in a small white church in the Barnum neighborhood of Denver. She filed Nevada divorce papers in early 1945, while he was returning from overseas in WWII. A personal letter from Winnie to Will at that time showed they parted amicably.
He had basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and some time later also had specialized training at the Fort Pierce [FL] Naval Amphibious Training Base. Being in his mid- to late 20s, he found himself being called the "old man." He recalled how while aboard ship one December, he could hear homesick sailors quietly crying in nooks and crannies of the ship, while "White Christmas" played on the loudspeakers.
He was a Motor Machinist Mate (a "motor mac") aboard landing craft at Sicily and Salerno as part of the Eighth Amphibious Force, and Operation Overlord at Utah Beach at Normandy. At least two of his landing craft were sunk, and his unit received a citation for bravery while under fire. A 1945 newspaper in Davenport IA stated he'd been in four major invasions, so the fourth must have been Operation Torch at French Africa. To deal with the tedium, he volunteered for Shore Patrol duty while in Morocco. He said once his craft took a direct hit (perhaps at Salerno) and he was thrown from it. While in the water another craft was about to run him over. He dived and emerged with slashes from the propeller in the "Mae West" he was wearing. Perhaps it was at Salerno that he witnessed a black flyer (a Redtail?) who was very angry for being shot down by our own trigger-happy gunners. The pilot claimed he'd just had a German in his sights.
He reported aboard LST-58 April 19, 1944, and was still assigned to it on April 30th near Slapton Sands, Great Britain. On the 28th hundreds of servicemen were killed during a German raid on a practice rehearsal for Normandy called "Exercise Tiger." However, he never spoke about that event. It's possible that he and others with Mediterranean experience were left off that practice convoy. That is not certain.
He said that, at Normandy while helping pick up bodies from the invasion beaches, he was okay until he saw a gun barrel bent in a "U" shape from having been wrapped around someone's body. That really bothered him. He later got so bored in the days after landing soldiers at Utah and ferrying wounded troops out to waiting ships, that he and some buddies started up the Seine "on their way to Paris." Angry American troops on a (pontoon?) bridge stopped them because there were armed Germans just a bit further upstream. He once said he had made it to Motor Machinist Mate 1st Class, but after a night of too much celebration, he was busted back to 2nd Class.
While estranged from his wife, he had met Margaret Allen in 1942 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and fathered a son named William Alden, born in 1943. After the war she divorced her abusive first husband whom she had married after the birth, and she and Will married in December of 1945 at Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had three more children, with their daughter Judy dying as a toddler. They moved from Denver to Brighton, Colorado, where they lived much of their lives together, first on the north edge of Brighton and later on seven rural acres near Barr Lake. Having an eighth grade education and a GED, he was proud as punch when for one semester all three of his boys were enrolled at Colorado State University.
Friends with whom he and Margaret had many good experiences were John and Jerry Maurer of north Denver, George and C___ Scott of Thornton, and Don and Peggy Ingersoll of Silt, Colorado. Brighton friends included George and Midge Ott and John and Mary Matsuno.
He loved to camp, hunt, and fish in the Rockies. A favorite family fishing campsite was the Horseshoe Campground on the Williams Fork. In the 1950s a Brighton sport club enlisted him to become a game warden, thinking it would be good PR. His warden's badge visible in his billfold once got him out of a traffic ticket. However, he was quickly kicked out as a club member after the first two people he ticketed were club members duck hunting before sunrise! Fall deer hunting amid the golden "quakies" invigorated him, and he kept the family freezer well stocked.
After the war he declined a machinist job at a railroad shop in North Denver, because he didn't want to work indoors so much. Ironically even to Will, he then spent about twenty years indoors as a warehouse foreman for Bankers Warehouse (owned by the kind Phil Milstein) in Denver and Brighton, and a year or two for Fashion Bar Design. He lastly worked for Reservco/Reinforced Earth in Commerce City.
He and Margaret were killed instantly on the south side of Brighton when their car was broadsided by a semi-truck hauling produce to Denver, driven by Larry Dean McFarland of Greeley, who ran a red light. The force of the crash sent their car 300' sideways down the highway. In the two weeks before their fatal crash, each individually told their middle son that they would not know what to do without the other. They had both been eagerly looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild, six weeks afterward. They also never knew their two granddaughters, born several years later. They will be forever missed.
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MOMM 2 US NAVY WORLD WAR II
