The Real Life and Tragic End of Private Roy Cobb | Band of Brothers 

Private Roy Cobb is one of the most misrepresented and maligned soldiers, not only in the Band of Brothers series, but also in books, articles, and media. From the date of his enlistment to his alleged court marshal to the circumstances of his death, much of what has been reported about Cobb is incorrect.

 In this video, I’m going to set the record straight about Roy Cobb, including his early life to his time in the military to the incident that led to his tragic death at just 42 years old. The real Roy William Cobb was born on March 4th, 1922 in Harland County, Kentucky. Roy had a brother named Tai and a sister named Jean.

 Their father, Perry Cobb, passed away when Roy was just two years old. Their mother Nancy remarried to a coal miner 16 years her senior named Lonnie Rosco Scar Bro and together they had six more children. Roy who went by the name Rey attended school up to the 7th grade. He enlisted in the army most likely around 1938 when he was 16 giving a false birth date of November 4th, 1919 in order to be accepted.

 He was stationed at Fort De Moine, Iowa for a time. By January 1940, Roy Cobb held the rank of private as part of Battery C 68th Field Artillery Battalion at Fort Knox, Kentucky. By July of that year, the battalion’s designation had changed from mechanized to armored, which corresponds with the date of the formation of the first armored division.

From June 1942 to August 1942, Cobb was hospitalized with Tersian malaria at the fifth general hospital near Belfast, Ireland. He is listed as being part of the signal corps at the time. According to Steven Ambrose’s book, Cobb then served with the first armored during Operation Torch in North Africa in November 1942.

 If true, this would likely make him the only member of Easy Company to have experienced both a beach landing and an airborne assault. On his way back to the States after Operation Torch, Ambrose states that the troop ship he was on was torpedoed. Cobb made it off the ship safely and returned to America on a destroyer.

 While I could find no record of a troop ship being torpedoed during that period, the incident may reflect one of the many lesser publicized convoy losses during the ongoing Yubot activity in the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean after Operation Torch. As noted by the Reddit user WB Gamer, who posted their extensive research in Nikob, his grave marker form doesn’t say anything about him serving in North Africa with the first armored, but that is not a significant enough indicator in itself to say that he wasn’t there, and I have

no other reason to believe that Ambrose is incorrect. After returning to the states, Cobb volunteered for the paratroopers in 1943. And in June of that year, he is on record as being with Company A of the 515th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he attended Jump School. In November 1943, he received the promotion from private to private first class at Camp McCall, North Carolina, when he was with Company A of the 541st Parachute Infantry Regiment.

 Either later that month or in the months that followed, Cobb joined Easy Company 56th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the company depicted in Band of Brothers, linking up with them when they were stationed in Alborne, England in the months prior to D-Day. Based on these records, this means that the real Roy Cobb was not with Easy Company at Camp Takcoa, Georgia in 1942, as the series falsely depicts in the first episode.

 During the D-Day drops into Normandy, Cobb, a light machine gunner, switched seats on the C-47 with George Luz, who was worried about making it to the door of the plane with all the gear he was carrying, which included a radio and batteries. The switch proved to be a mistake for Cobb, who was struck in the leg by flack that had penetrated the fuselage.

 He was groaning and was unable to stand up. Private Robert Rder recalled that Cobb was livid. He had trained for two years, but didn’t get to make the big jump. Seconds later, the green light came on and the men began to exit the plane as Cobb remained behind. Two days later, Cobb received a purple heart for his wounds.

 He recovered and rejoined Easy Company in England prior to Operation Market Garden. It is at this time in the series that Cobb picks on Private James Miller, a replacement who is portrayed by James Makavoy. Cobb tells him that he shouldn’t be wearing the presidential distinguished unit citation because he didn’t fight in Normandy.

 Bull Randomman then steps in and tells Cobb that he didn’t fight in Normandy either. Cobb leans over and tells Private Antonio Garcia, “I got hit in the plane before I got a chance to jump.” The entire scene is fictional and is meant to set Cobb up as an abrasive antagonist and Randleman as the respectable hero who steps in to stick up for Miller.

 On a side note, Bander Brothers incorrectly refers to the citation as the presidential distinguished unit citation. However, at the time it was just known as the distinguished unit citation. It didn’t become redesated as the presidential unit citation until 1957. Conveniently, the series leaves out the fact that Cobb had been fighting in the war longer than almost all the other men in Easy Company and was likely already an experienced soldier by this point.

 It also leaves out the fact that most of the other soldiers who knew him said that Cobb was a likable, effective soldier. His close friend, Private David Kenyon Webster, wrote in his memoir that Cobb was invariably good-natured and friendly with others outside of specific incidents. Dick Winters described Cobb as hard-nosed, a regular army man who clearly understood combat.

 In Clancy Lyall’s book, he says that Cobb was one of the guys who could be a pain in the butt, but you could count on him. Lyall states, “Because I knew him best, Roy Cobb was given to me to take care of. When he got drunk, he was a bastard first class, right? And one day he got so drunk and was starting to tick off Captain Spears.

 I’m pretty sure Spears was going to kill him. So I dragged Cobb by the arm and took him away from him. You own that son of a [ __ ] Lyall. I don’t want to see his darn face again unless he straightened out. Spears yelled at me. I said, “All right, sir. Understood, sir.” And took him away from there. Lyall summed up Roy Cobb by saying that he was quite good as a combat soldier and he was a nice guy except when he got a bottle of booze.

Dick Winter spoke commendably of Cobb’s actions during the October 5th, 1944 crossroads battle in the Netherlands, stating that he delivered extremely effective long-d distanceance fire on the retreating Germans. John Martin also praised Cobb’s efforts in the battle. For his action in the Netherlands, Cobb received the Bronze Star, which is believed to have been for his role in the defense of the town of Uden.

 Instead of portraying the positive aspects of Cobb, as noted by the veterans who knew him, Band of Brothers portrays Cobb as consistently bitter, abrasive, and somewhat cowardly. But why? Why turn the man into a one-dimensional a-hole for the series? The writers of the series needed villains in order to create drama.

 And they conveniently chose people who were already dead. This included Cobb, Herbert Soil, and Norman Dyke. Men whose negative traits were blown out of proportion and became the entirety of their characters. In Hagenau, France, Cobb took part in the February 15th, 1945 patrol across the Motor River to retrieve a couple German soldiers to bring back and interrogate for intelligence.

 However, similar to what we see in the Band of Brothers episode, The Last Patrol, his boat capsized twice in the icy water, and he and fellow soldiers Thomas McCreary and Melvin Wyn gave up and returned to the shore. Ultimately, the patrol managed to bring back two Germans and was forced to leave a wounded German soldier on the riverbank.

 The soldier had been shot in the lungs and could be heard wheezing and crying out in pain throughout the night in between the shelling. In the series, David Kenyon Webster suggests, “Maybe we should put him out of his misery.” To which Roy Cobb replies, “F his misery.” This is followed by John Martin commenting, “I can’t listen to it anymore.” before walking off.

 Here, Cobb is portrayed as being cold and ruthless as he’s happy to let the German continue to suffer. However, in real life, Bob Marsh and David Kenny Webster threw grenades across the river, but were unsuccessful in trying to put the man out of his misery. According to Ambrose, Cobb could no longer take the sound of the dying German.

 He went to the riverbank and threw a grenade across, killing the man and ending his suffering. Toward the end of the episode, Cobb is intoxicated after drinking a bottle of Schnops and gets into a verbal altercation with Private David Kenyon Webster and Lieutenant Henry Jones Jr. This specific altercation is fictional.

 According to David Kenyon Webster’s book, Parachute Infantry, Roy Cobb, Bill Morganti, and Donald Weisman had found several cases of schnops in a house that was under direct observation by the Germans. The three men stacked the cases in the courtyard, but the Germans heard them and put mortars on the area, destroying most of the liquor.

 However, the men managed to bring back two bottles each while under rifle fire. Wisemen got nicked in the knee by a bullet as he fled the area. In real life, Private Cobb then got into an altercation with Private Bob Marsh at observation post 2 when Cobb was drunk and went upstairs to run a belt through a new machine gun they had been given.

 Marsh, who had never liked Cobb, went after him to stop him and a fight broke out. Cobb was left with a bloody nose and a black eye. Ambrose states in his book that it was Roy Cobb who then became irate and started mouththing off at Lieutenant Jack Foley who ordered him to shut up. Cobb then charged at Foley and was tackled to the ground by two men.

Sergeant John Martin pulled out his 45, but Foley told him to holster the weapon. Foley then ordered Cobb arrested. However, this description by Ambrose is almost certainly incorrect. Lieutenant Foley would not have been present at observation post 2, nor would John Martin have been there. Almost all communication with Martin was done by phone with Martin at the platoon command post.

 According to David Kenyon Webster, it was actually Donald Weisman who mouthed off at the platoon commander, Lieutenant Foley, at the platoon command post and then got into a violent argument with Captain Ronald Spears at the company command post. We know that Webster’s account is likely correct because the Easy Company morning report dated February 23rd, 1945 states that Donald Wiseman was confined to the regimental stade on February 17th, 1945.

 There is no mention of Cobb being arrested. It appears that Ambrose got the men mixed up or was told the wrong information during his interviews with the veterans. In his book, Ambrose also likely falsely states that Cobb faced a court marshal as a result. However, Ambrose never spoke to Cobb for the book since Cobb had died decades earlier.

 And once again, Ambrose failed to do his due diligence when it came to research, instead relying mostly on the recollections and assumptions of a handful of men 50 years after the events occurred. The series dramatizes the claims in Ambrose’s book and shows Cobb later being escorted in a jeep by military police. It’s logical to conclude from the series that Cobb faced a court marshal in a dishonorable discharge, a false claim that is often repeated online in articles, wikis, and fan discussions.

 Further supporting that Cobb was never court marshaled and dishonorably discharged from the army is the fact that he received the award of good conduct medal less than two months later on April 12th, 1945. How could he possibly be given a good conduct medal if he was facing a court marshal? Interestingly, at the time he received the medal, he was not with Easy Company, but was with headquarters company.

 It’s possible that he was temporarily moved from easy company to headquarters company as part of a disciplinary measure and the good conduct medal was to encourage continued good behavior aka less drinking but that’s only speculation. Then there’s this photo of easy company taken in Caprun Austria in July 1945 roughly 2 months after Germany surrendered.

 A man identified as Roy Cobb is present in the photo. If it’s indeed him, as it appears to be, he is still clearly in the army. According to Clancy Lyall, he stated in his biography that the notion that Cobb had been upset because he didn’t get promoted, as some have stated, is not true. I don’t think he was frustrated about that, said Lyall.

 He was a private first class back then, just like me at the time. Lyall said that Cobb made it to corporal after Hagenau and also became an assistant squad leader. We also know from military records that after World War II, Roy Cobb reinlisted into the regular army on January 9th, 1946, which definitively shuts down any notion of a dishonorable discharge since he would not have been allowed to reinlist.

 While stationed in post-war Europe, Cobb met and fell in love with a Belgian woman named Marie, who was four years his junior. She had herself served in World War II as part of the British Auxiliary Territorial Service. It is believed that they married in Belgium in 1946. They had a son, Raymond, who was born in Belgium in 1947.

Cobb was discharged from the army on February 27th, 1948. He and his wife relocated back to Cobb’s home county of Harland, Kentucky, where he struggled to find work as a coal miner. In 1949, their daughter Rose was born. In the following years, they would have a third child, a boy named Gary. As stated earlier, Roy Cobb had an older brother named Tai Cobb.

 Yes, his brother, coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, had the same name as the famous baseball player. Tai served in World War II in the field artillery. After World War II, he reinlisted in December 1945. However, Royy’s brother Tai passed away the following year in Babylon, New York on July 19th, 1946 at just 25 years of age.

 His cause of death is unknown. Around 1950, Roy, his wife, Marie, and their children were living with Royy’s mother Nancy, and some of Royy’s younger half siblings. It is unclear if Roy and Marie moved in with his mother directly after returning from Belgium in 1948. It is likely they did since Royy’s stepfather Lonnie passed away that same year at age 64.

 In the 1950 census, a 28-year-old Roy Cobb was listed as a prisoner in the Harland County Jail under the name Ray Cobb. As stated earlier, Ray is the name he is believed to have went by instead of his birth name, Roy. It’s unknown what he was in jail for and whether drinking was involved in his arrest.

 However, it appears that his marriage possibly started to break down around this time or shortly after. Sometime around 1953 for reasons unknown, Roy Cobb moved to California. It is unclear if his family went with him or if he and his wife separated at this point. However, in his obituary just over 10 years later, Marie is not mentioned as someone he was survived by.

 Nor was she the one who filled out the application form for a veteran’s headstone which was completed by his mother. Likewise, when Marie died at age 86 in 2012, Roy was not mentioned as one of the family members she was preceded in death by. This leads me to believe that they did separate or divorce around the time he went to California.

 Marie subsequently moved to Michigan, attended community college, and became a physical therapist. She worked as an LPN and physical therapist at Bayer Memorial Hospital in Ipsellante where she lived. She retired at age 83 just 3 years before her death. She kept the name Marie Cobb and appears to have never remarried.

 Roy Cobb was living in California for just over a decade before tragedy struck on April 23rd, 1964. According to the Sacramento B, evidence showed that four men, including Roy Cobb, had been drinking whiskey that afternoon. They got into a car driven by one of the men, 36-year-old Kenneth Fetty. An article in the Berkeley Gazette stated that Fetty was intoxicated and got into a heated argument with another man in the car, 26-year-old Frank Essex, who was also drunk.

 Fetty pulled off the road so they could fight and in doing so ran over a nearly 3-ft high reflector type marker on the side of Elhorn Road about 8 miles north of Sacramento. The car stalled on top of the signpost. After Fetty and Essex had ited out on the side of the road, the men then tried to get the car unstuck from on top of the post.

 Kenneth Fetty got back behind the wheel and the other three men, including Roy Cobb, began pushing the vehicle to dislodge it from the signpost. Cobb and a 23-year-old man named Barry Dyer, were pushing from behind, and Frank Ess was pushing on one side. For reasons unknown, Fetty shifted the car into reverse, presumably to try to dislodge it.

 Suddenly, the car shot backward and sideways into a steep drainage ditch, pinning Barry Dyer underneath and Roy Cobb between the bumper and the wall of the ditch. Both Cobb and Dyer suffered crushed chests and internal injuries and died before reaching Sacramento Hospital by ambulance. Roy Cobb was just 42 years old and had been a farm worker at the time.

 The driver, Kenneth Fedy, was booked in the county jail on suspicion of drunk driving and felony manslaughter. The police had been seeking Fedy for some time on a traffic warrant for his arrest for driving with a suspended license. He was sentenced to prison the following month for involuntary manslaughter. A probation report revealed that Fedy had an extensive record of previous arrests for intoxication, including three arrests for drunk driving.

 He had also been arrested in 1959 for purse snatching. And despite his negligent actions that resulted in the deaths of Roy Cobb and Barry Dyer, Fetty was arrested for drunk driving several years later in June 1969 and sentenced to 6 months in jail. He was then again arrested for drunk driving in 1971 and once again ordered to jail time.

 Roy Cobb’s body was transferred back to his hometown and he was laid to rest in Oddfellow’s Cemetery in Pineville, Kentucky. Of all the Bandit Brothers veterans I’ve researched, Roy Cobb’s story was the hardest to sort out. Much of the information online, including in articles and videos, leads back to Steven Ambrose’s book or the series itself as the source.

 Of the 16 books I have on Easy Company and its members, most mentioned Roy Cobb, very little or not at all, while others draw mainly from Ambrose, most helpful was David Kenyon Webster’s book Parachute Infantry and to some degree Clancy Lyall’s biography Silver Eagle. A debt of gratitude is owed to the Reddit user WB Gamer, whose extensive research into Cobb has helped to restore his legacy.

Much of their well-documented research provided the groundwork for this video, which I was then able to expand upon. Sadly, like Herbert Soil, Norman Dyke, and Albert Ble, Roy Cobb was a victim of shoddy research by Steven Ambrose and a lack of fact-checking by the Band of Brothers screenwriters.

 As a result, Roy Cobb was maligned by both Ambrose and the series. In the end, from what we know about Cobb’s true story, he was a good combat soldier who was generally well-liked by the men, except when he was drunk. Like many soldiers, he had issues with alcohol, but he was likely never court marshaled because of it, nor was he discharged over his real life drunken incident in Hagenau.

 He continued to serve his country during the Allied occupation until 1948 when he was honorably discharged. It’s hard to say to what degree the war, PTSD, and Cobb’s drinking took a toll on his short civilian life that followed, including his marriage. But if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that Cobb deserved to be remembered for the man he was, not the antagonist Band of Brothers turned him into because it needed to create another fictional villain for its storyline.

 If you enjoyed this insight into the real Roy Cobb, check out our similar videos on Herbert Soil and Elbert Ble that are linked on the screen. If you found this video informative, hit that like button and to follow all of our latest Band of Brothers content, be sure to subscribe to our channel. Anchors away, my friends.