Trading cigarettes for cameras: A WWII soldier’s unlikely path to preserving history
By Craig McKee
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PHOENIX (KNXV) — With World War II underway, Bob Stone knew it was just a matter of time before he’d find himself on a warship heading overseas. He was 21 and made a decision to take control of the situation, the best he could.
“If you let them pick where you’re going, you could wind up in the trenches,” Stone said. “And they offered me an option where they would teach me some radio engineering… so I took it.”
Now 103, the New York–born World War II veteran recalls training eight hours a day, six days a week, for six months in radio engineering — the equivalent, he said, of a two-year course. By the time he finished, the Army had enough radio technicians.
“They offered me some other options,” Stone said. “I could become a pigeon trainer. I could become a cook… and then they gave me an option of becoming a teletype operator. Since I was able to type, I took that.”
That choice put Stone at the heart of the Allied war effort in Europe. Deployed to the European Theater in 1944, he arrived on the continent about two months after D-Day, first passing through the muddy, rain-soaked orchards of Normandy.
“We went through Normandy, and we spent a couple of weeks in the apple orchards,” he said. “We were living in these little tents, two men to one of these tents, and it rained most of the time. So it was not enjoyable.”
Conditions changed when his unit reached Paris. There, the U.S. military moved into a heavily fortified communications center the Germans had built.
“We spent most of our time in a bombproof concrete blockhouse that the Germans had built in Paris,” Stone said. “When we chased the Germans out, we took over the blockhouse and made that the headquarters of our communications… and we operated three shifts, eight hours a shift, around the clock.”
His work as a teletype operator helped keep messages flowing under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s command across the European Theater and back to the United States.
In Paris, Stone picked up another role — unofficial combat photographer. A fellow soldier with photography training sparked his interest.
“I became friendly with another fellow… he was in the photography, and he got me into it, got me interested,” Stone said.
Supplies were scarce, but Stone discovered that American rations could open doors.
“We were able to get good cameras and film without any cost to us, just by trading candy, cigarettes and so on. We could get anything we wanted. The French were dying for that stuff,” he said.
Unlike many of his peers, Stone never smoked.
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