BOB ROGGE: A couple weeks ago The Era ran an obituary that might
have given readers pause, since it was decorated with two flags:
American and Canadian.
To set the record straight, Robert E. Rogge, who died Dec. 14,
was an American in the ultimate sense of the word. He spent more
than 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1968 when he
became a reporter for The Era.
Former Era managing editor Paul Reichart of Dillsburg, whose
career path crossed with Bob’s at the Warren newspaper in 1970,
remembers Bob as a hero – of both countries.
“I had just graduated from college and Bob was nearly 50 with
four children, but we found we had a lot in common, probably
because we were the only people on staff who had military
experience,” Paul tells us.
“After hearing his story, I remember telling him how ironic it
was that many of my peers ran off to Canada to avoid the Vietnam
War … whereas he went there because he wanted to meet war
head-on.”
Bob, impatient for the U.S. to enter World War II, joined the
Canada forces at the age of 19.
He could have switched over to the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor,
but decided to stay with the Canadian unit and, consequently, saw
D-Day from a different perspective, landing at Juno Beach, instead
of Utah or Omaha where the Americans went ashore.
In later years Bob recounted what he saw in a book titled
“Fearsome Battle: With the Canadian Army in World War II Europe”
that vividly describes the brutality of the Normandy invasion and
the difficult, heroic months that followed until peace was finally
won.
Bob eventually went to work for military publications in
California, Washington, D.C., and Kentucky and Paul started at The
Era in 1976.
“He would occasionally check in with me when he was visiting
family in the Smethport area, usually around the holidays. I have a
fond memory of dragging Bob to The Era’s Christmas party one year
where he was able to connect with a few people he remembered from
days gone by,” Paul tells us.
Bob moved back to Smethport in 2001 and although Paul did not
see him again, “I will always think of him as an American hero that
I was lucky enough to count among my friends.”
