"The thing about being exceptionally happy that you are alive only lasts temporary, because all your buddies that you knew, a lot of them are still over there in graveyards." (Video Interview, 58:48)

Roy Daniel Bailey

Roy Bailey at time of military service War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: 71st Infantry Division Service Location: Camp Roberts, California; Fort Benning, Georgia; Camp Kilmer, New Jersey; European Theater Rank: Private Place of Birth: AK

Raised in an Anchorage orphanage, Roy Bailey was educated at a school for Alaskan natives until he was 15, when he went to work fulltime. At 17, he lied about his age to get into the Army and two years later, he found himself in the midst of the European Theater’s most intense fighting. Wounded and tangled up in wires, Bailey listened as many of his comrades died in the snowy woods. When he made it back to safety, no one would believe that his wounds were inflicted by the enemy. He was given belated recognition for his valor some 50 years later at a ceremony in Alaska attended by VIPs and his family.