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Roy W. Cobb was a soldier who served with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, U.S. 101st Airborne Division, in Easy company during World War II. He was played by Craig Heaney in the 10-part television mini-series Band of Brothers.
Roy Cobb was discharged from service after assaulting Lt. Jack Foley, his platoon commander, in Haguenau, after consuming a bottle of schnapps. Handing court-martial papers to Colonel Robert Sink, he said, "Foley, you could have saved us all a lot of trouble. You should have shot him."
He was portrayed in Band of Brothers as a very unfriendly and bitter person. This is thought to be because he served so long in the army but was never promoted. However he is described in Stephen E Ambroses book Band of Brothers as invariably good natured. He had served in the army for 9 years before he joined the Parachute Infantry. In that time he took part in an assault landing in Africa with the 1st Armoured Division and survived a torpedo attack that sank the troop ship he was on when traveling back to the States. During the drop into Normandy, Cobb was wounded in the plane he was in and could not jump. He rejoined Easy Company after they returned from Normandy and parachuted into Holland as a part of the unsuccessful Allied attempt in taking a number of bridges across the Rhine as part of Operation Market Garden. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was selected for a patrol at Haguenau.
The Social Security Death Index states that three men with social security numbers named Roy W. Cobb have died, two of which were old enough to have served in the Army for nine years before joining the parachute infantry. The more likely candidate was from New York and died in North Tonawanda, born June 18, 1914 and died in January 1990. The other was from Ohio and died in Cincinnati, born February 27, 1897 and died July 1, 1966, though this would have put him in his mid-to-late forties during the war, quite old for a paratrooper.
MOS: 745
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