August Bandstand Flag Notice

Roger Dean Stringfellow.

Roger Dean Stringfellow
March 12, 1920 – July 8, 2005
United States Navy
Motor Machinist Mate First Class

The flag flying over the bandstand during July is in honor of Roger Dean Stringfellow.

Rodger Stringfellow grew up on the family farm at Rose Hill. He entered the U.S. Navy on October 3, 1942, in Des Moines. He did his basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois, attended Motor Machinist Mate School at Navy Pier in Chicago, and then had training at the Diesel Naval Training School in Cleveland. He went to the Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia and from there to Algeria.

Rodger Stringfellow was a crew member aboard a 36-foot landing craft (LCVP – Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel or Higgins boat) stationed on an LST (Landing Ship Tank). The landing craft landed assault infantry on invasion days. Stringfellow made first wave landings at Sicily (July 1943), Salerno Italy (September 1943), Anzio Italy (January 1944), and southern France (August 1944). He spent 19 months in the Mediterranean area.

After returning to the U.S. Stringfellow left on an LST that traveled through the Panama Canal, stopped at Seattle, and then went to the Far East. He took part in the Philippines liberation and the Okinawa operation. Immediately after the war ended with Japan, he entered the harbor of Yokohama, Japan and saw the great destruction from aerial bombing. He was thankful for the use of the atomic bombs to end the war with Japan as he felt that the invasion of Japan would have led to staggering American losses, and his group would have been in on the first wave of the invasion. He spent 8 months in the Asiatic theater, returned to the U.S., and was discharged at Minneapolis October 15, 1945.