Roy E. Kuch 1898 - 1918

KUCH, THOMAS, JONES

Posted By: Joe Conroy (email)
Date: 6/13/2012 at 12:59:40

Williamsburg Journal Tribune
Williamsburg, Iowa
12 Dec 1918
Page 1

Among The Missing

Roy Kuch So Reported From the Verdun Front.

Mr. John Kuch received a telegram from the war department saying that his son, Roy, was missing since Sept. 26th. It was about this time that Roy's unit was engaged on the Verdun front, and his father has heard nothing from him since then. The news is as disheartening as it is sad, and the one hope remains that he may be later heard from as being among the prisoners held by Germany.

Roy was a splendid young man, and had been in France for several months.

Williamsburg Journal Tribune
Williamsburg, Iowa
2 Jan 1919
Page 1

Wounded And A Prisoner

Word From Roy Kuch Was Cheering New Year's News for His Relatives.

One of the cheeriest bits of news ever received at Williamsburg was the card this week from Roy Kuch to his father, Mr. John Kuch, in which the young soldier states that the cause of his name appearing in the list of the "missing" was owing to the fact that he is a prisoner of war in a German camp; in the fierce engagement of Sept. 26th Roy was wounded, shot in the left side, and was taken prisoner by the enemy. The war department reported him as missing and his relatives here were very much depressed over the situation. This continued until this week when the following card was received from the Williamsburg soldier:

October 3, 1918
Dear Father: --
How are you all by this time?
I am a prisoner of war. I am wounded in the left side. I was shot a little below the arm. I can't get out of bed. I am getting good treatment and care, so be sure and don't worry about me.
Roy Kuch.

Williamsburg Journal Tribune
Williamsburg, Iowa
20 Mar 1919
Page 1

Roy E. Kuch Died In Germany

Williamsburg Soldier, Sleeps in a Bavarian Grave.

All doubts and hopes in connection with the fate of Roy E. Kuch, the Williamsburg soldier who was last reported in a German prison camp, were dispelled Friday when W. F. Harris, chairman of the Red Cross civil and relief work, received a telegram from the authorities at Washington stating that the young man died December 18th in Hospital 26, Bavaria. The matter was cabled to Washington from Berne, Switzerland.

Roy Kuch, it will be remembered, was reported "missing" after an engagement on the western front early in September. A few weeks later, his father here received a card from the boy who was then in a German prison camp, suffering from a wound. This was the last word heard from him, although the father, through Congressman Hull, made every effort to locate him, succeeding in establishing the fact that the boy was in hospital 26. The supposition was that this was an American hospital, and in the effort to locate this it was learned that No. 26 was a hospital in connection with the German prison camp.

Roy Earl Kuch was born in Troy township twenty years ago; he lived with his parents on the farm and was well along with the high school course when he enlisted in the old cavalry company organized in Williamsburg four years ago. He was but a boy then, and his father's consent was required before he could enlist. With the old unit he saw service on the Mexican border, and when the army was again mobilized he went with his comrades to Camp Cody. From here he was sent to France, and his history since was that of the millions who with him were making the great adventure. Shortly after landing in France he was on the firing line, and it was in the fierce engagement last September he fell wounded, and was captured by the enemy. Of the weary days and nights that followed in the prison camp, far from home and kin, there is not a single line or word that might be used to describe the thoughts that must have surged through the waking hours of the boy from the Troy township farm; but imagery can write the story, a story that might well implant feelings of a woman in the breast of the bravest man. He was a soldier, every inch of him; he volunteered for the service in which he died, -- and his death turns to brightest gold the blue star on the service flag of the town that feels a pride in his record.

The brave boy sleeps far from his native heath, the murmur of a foreign wind passes over the distant place of his rest, but here at home the memories of the devotion of Roy Kuch to the flag of his country and the sacrifice he made that others might live in peace, commingle like tears and praise above that lonely Bavarian grave.

He is survived by his father, Mr. John Kuch, two brothers, Albert and Carl, and five sisters, Mrs. C. H. Thomas, Mrs. Earl Jones, and Mary, Bertha and Martha, of the home, and to the bereaved family the entire community extends its tenderest sympathies.