Hollywood never made a World War II movie about Peekskill’s Thomas Roe, but maybe they should have.
The film would tell the story of a 1938 Peekskill High School grad who tried five times to enlist for combat duty in the Army, the Navy and the Marines but was rejected because of a physical impairment.
Finally Roe was accepted for “limited service, non-combatant duty” and inducted into the Army Nov. 5, 1942. He was assigned to anti-aircraft observation duty and served along the east coast.
Two years later, when the Army asked for volunteers to serve in combat, Roe signed up and was shipped off to the front after basic training.
“Tommy craved action and he didn’t get it in the non-combatant posts in this country,” the Evening Star reported. “When Uncle Sam asked for volunteers for the infantry last year, he was one of the first in his group to offer his services.”
The Tommy Roe movie would reach its dramatic climax as Roe’s mother receives notice from the War Department at her Warren Avenue home that her son died in combat serving with Company E of the 255th Infantry somewhere in France.
Tommy attended Peekskill High School where he was popular with the student body. He was a member of the relay team and played basketball. During basic training he was captain of the baseball team and a member of the volleyball team. He was a great grandnephew of P. T. Barnum.
He was born in Wappingers Falls on August 12, 1919, the son of Helen Coghill Roe and the late Thomas B. Roe. After Mr. Roe died, Mrs. Roe got re-married, to Charles Cobe.
Peekskill recognizes a hero who sacrificed all
This coming Memorial Day, May 26, a simple dedication ceremony at the Assumption Cemetery will reveal a headstone over Tommy Roe’s grave. Roe’s body was returned to Peekskill after the war but he was buried in his family’s plot with a military ceremony, but no marker.
Ralph Heady, a descendant of Private First Class Roe, visited Peekskill from Florida last spring looking for his uncle’s grave. Cemetery workers were able to locate the grave through their records and Heady then realized there was no headstone to mark the spot where Private Roe laid in rest. When U.S. Army Major (Ret.) Tim Warn, a volunteer with the American Legion, learned about this, he helped Heady go through the Veterans Administration to get a headstone at no cost to mark the burial place of a veteran killed in action.
Now, when Warn and the other volunteers bring American flags to the Hillside and Assumption cemeteries each Memorial Day, Thomas Roe will be recognized along with all the other Peekskill service members who have died.
Everyone attending the Memorial Day ceremony at Monument Park on Monday, May 26, are invited to come to the Assumption Cemetery afterward for the dedication of Private First Class Thomas Roe’s headstone and pay their respects to a son of Peekskill who died for his country.
When Roe’s body was returned to Peekskill, other soldiers killed in action also came home to rest in peace, including Sgt. Charles F. Minor, Jr., 22, killed in action in Germany on Feb. 27, 1945; Pfc. Vincent E. Hiland, 23, killed in action in France on Jan. 25, 1945; and Pfc. Warren A. Gamble, 21, killed in action in Belgium in March 1944.
“By honoring Private Roe, we honor all those who died in service,” Warn said. “Just to the right of Roe’s grave is Anthony Scaramellino who died at Iwo Jima, and to his left is another gentlemen who served in the Navy. After the Civil War, people came to the cemetery on Decoration Day to mark the graves of the war dead. We sort of lost that tradition.”
