One El Paso native served with distinction in Italy. Robinson E. Duff3 was born on the Frank Koerner farm west of town and later lived as a boy at 29 East First Street. Serving as a brigadier general in the regular army, he was deputy commander of the crack 10th Mountain Division which came into the Italian campaigns in 1944. In the final days of the war he was assigned to command what was called Task Force Duff, a fast moving, heavily armored force which aided mightily in the 1945 cleaning up campaign in northern Italy. Duff was wounded in this final phase and had to be replaced. He is now a major general and lives in Falls Church, Virginia.

There was so much valiant service all over the world in this second of the great wars that we cannot tell much of it here. As in the Civil War, very young men had big and important jobs, like Lt. Robert V. Bower of the Navy, already a veteran seaman at twenty-six and the captain of Mine Sweeper 72 in the vast Pacific which one day raged into a mighty typhoon. The young man brought his ship and crew safely into port. Not so fortunate were other youngsters, like Flight Officer Clayton Schofield of the Air Force, who tarried in his crippled bomber over Pontebba, Italy, to make certain all his crew had bailed out and then was too late to save his own life because his chute was on fire. Three boys named Richard live forever on El Paso High School's finest honor roll, for Richard King, Richard Ball and Richard Hibbs are

Flight Officer Clayton Schofield, whose concern for the crew cost him his own life.
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