Roman Pfeffer
While reading the stats from Missoula baseball games from long ago an unfamiliar name jumped out at me: Roman Pfeffer. Several local Missoulian articles in 1948 mentioned his hitting prowess, but his name didn’t ring any bells. You don’t forget a name like that. Gaps in my local knowledge of stellar baseball players could certainly account for it, but it turns out there was a lot more to it than that. What happened to this guy who dominated Missoula batting in 1948.
As the legendary Missoulian sports reporter Ray Rocene said, Roman Pfeffer was swinging a big bat. By the 4th of July 1948, he led the city league with a perfect 1,000, hitting 6 for 6. They were now calling him the “hard-hitting player from Indiana,” and a “speed ball all-around athlete.” By July 11th he was still batting .800 with 10 at bats. He had reached base 9 consecutive times in 3 league games before striking out in a 7th inning. The competition included notable local names like future-pro Curt Barclay, Bob Cope, Gus Nash, Cub Potter, and Wilbert Deschamps. By the end of the season Pfeffer led the league by almost 100 points, batting .545, all the while playing for the last place team which won only 1 game. No doubt local fans were asking: Who is this guy? It turned out he had a remarkable story.
The University of Montana already knew about Roman Pfeffer. He had tried out for the University basketball team in 1946, making it to the last cut. At 6 feet and 200 pounds he was a former All-State high school basketball star from Jasper, Indiana. He was also a member of U of M’s track squad in 1948, earning points in the shotput while throwing alongside the tremendous discus champion, Dick Doyle. That same track squad also included two of U of M’s notable basketball stars, Bob Cope and Lou Rocheleau. Roman also competed in numerous basketball pickup games where it was noted that he played with several other local men who had served in the military. Indeed, like many young men of that era, Roman had seen more of the military than he wanted to, earning both Silver and Bronze Star medals for his combat in Europe. He was one of six Pfeffer brothers in the military during WW II.
An article about him appeared in The Herald newspaper located in Jasper, Dubois County, Indiana on May 26, 2017:
The heart (and arm) of a soldier
Roman Pfeffer could throw a fastball with the best of ‘em. The skill helped the Jasper native in World War II but might have cost him a chance at professional baseball.
By Stephen Lee
Pierre (S.D.) Capital Journal
Roman Pfeffer had some glory days on the mound, back in the day. Just out of school, he struck out Joe DiMaggio with a fastball that approached 100 mph, and the New York Yankees signed him up.
So did Uncle Sam.
The Jasper native went off to fight in World War II, wrecking his golden right arm throwing hand grenades at German soldiers and receiving a Bronze Star and Silver Star for his brave and gallant actions.
He died a successful man, say two of his children, Mary Word and Ray Pfeffer, who now live in Pierre, South Dakota.
Though their father hardly mentioned it, all eight kids knew Roman Pfeffer had sacrificed a pretty good chance at major league success, said Ray Pfeffer.
Roman Pfeffer’s story is one for Memorial day.
The news in The Herald announced that Roman received the Silver Star for his bravery “for gallantry in action while fighting with the 3rd Infantry Division, 7th Army in France.”
It was during the waning months of the war in Europe, looking backward. But it likely didn’t feel like a done deal yet to the men slogging after the German army, which was retreating to the Rhine.
The Battle of the Bulge had just been won by the Allies, pushing back what often is seen as the last big gasp of the Nazi war machine. But there was another fight, at the “Colmar Pocket,” in January 1945, another sort of “bulge” of the German army in a rough semi-circle arcing west of the Rhine, in the Alsace region of France.
Both because it was a last stand of sorts, for the Germans, and also involved an area long considered to be part of Germany by Germans, the fighting was intense.
Roman Pfeffer and his unit were fighting at the Colmar Canal, a mile or two from the Rhine River of Germany; about halfway between Paris and Munich.
It was cold, about 10 degrees.
Ray Pfeffer remembers his father talking about how cold it was.
The heroism in plain language sounds sort of mundane, perhaps, as recalled in The Herald: “During a holding action on bridge sites across the Colmar Canal southeast of a town, Pfc Pfeffer manned his light machine gun and battled at least six enemy machine guns 150-yards away firing on his position from the canal. For ten minutes, until artillery fire could be called for and registered in, he checked attempts by 100 enemy to advance and dislodge his company from the strategic bridge site. His continuous fire, despite enemy bullets which raked the ground within inches of him, killed one German officer and an additional undetermined number of enemy.
“He was also awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge for ‘exemplary conduct under fire against the enemy.’”
Roman Pfeffer came home after the war, went to forestry school on the GI Bill in Montana, and married, in 1952, the Brockton, Montana ranch girl-now-nurse, Pauline Irigoin, who cared for him at the Veterans Affairs hospital when he got banged up in a car accident in 1949.
They settled in Atlanta, where he began working for the federal government in forestry and the raised eight children.
“He did not like the war at all,” Pauline Pfeffer said from her Atlanta home. “He was about to go right out of high school with the Yankees. They picked him as a pitcher and he went to spring training with Joe DiMaggio and all those Yankees. That was his whole life and then the war came along and he was not happy to get drafted.
He took it out, maybe a little, on the Germans. Roman Pfeffer had an edge of sorts.
“He was a first-generation American,” said Ray Pfeffer. “He spoke German fluently, from his parents. One of his first days over there, he was walking along a road and ran into a bunch of Germans.”
They were eating, surprised by Pfeffer getting the drop on them, even more by his perfect German telling them to “put their hands on their heads to save their necks.”
The 18 ex-warriors obediently marched to the American side.
“He figured he saved their lives,” Ray Pfeffer said. “Because they would have been killed.”
Roman Pfeffer was a master sergeant by the time he came home after the war; rising fast, recognized as a leader. But he wasn’t a soldier at heart, said Ray Pfeffer. He was a baseball player.
Roman Pfeffer was a big, tough guy – 6 feet, 200 pounds – in a tough outfit: the 3rd Infantry of the 7th Army is known by historians as the only Army division to fight in every corner of the war in Europe, including this last push only a few months before the end.
Audie Murphy, famous for being the most decorated American soldier in World War II – and later a movie star – was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions as a lieutenant with the 3rd Infantry in the Colmar Pocket in a standoff, similar to what Roman Pfeffer did.
Pfeffer fought in the 30th Regiment of the 3rd; Murphy fought in the 15th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division.
But that was nothing Roman Pfeffer ever brought up to his family.
“He didn’t talk about the war,” Ray Pfeffer said of his dad. “He wasn’t proud of what he did. He did not talk about it. Until about a month before he died. Then he opened up to me about it.”
It was late summer of 2001, and Ray Pfeffer was in Atlanta for a while and would sit on the front porch in the mornings with his dad.
“It’s like he knew he was going to die pretty soon,” Ray said. “Like it was all coming back to him. Like he had been holding it in for so long.”
The fight on the bridge over the canal was pretty hairy, his dad allowed in giving a few more details than the official news release gave.
Roman Pfeffer was carrying a BAR, the Browning Automatic Rifle that was too big for a lot of guys to hold and typically was fired using a tripod to hold up the barrel, Ray Pfeffer said. He had looped belts of ammo wrapped around his torso, firing enough to keep the Germans at bay so his unit could get across the bridge. Think Rambo.
“He was pretty matter-of-fact about it,” Ray Pfeffer said of the bullets that were hitting around his father’s feet.
His dad told of another time: They were crossing the Rhine in boats, under heavy fire of arms and mortars.
“He told me the only boat that got hit was the one carrying the chaplain and the priest,” Ray Pfeffer said of his dad, whose only sister was a Catholic nun who died of cancer during the war.
He told Ray of the time his unit came under heavy artillery fire and, looking for a safe place, he dove into a foxhole on top of two soldiers. Because of his size, with his big BAR and ammo belts, the guys felt crushed and yelled for him to get out.
“He crawled out and found a tiny little tree to hide behind,” Ray Pfeffer said. “Then a shell made a direct hit on that foxhole, killing those guys.”
Some of the seeming fortunes of war like that made it hard for soldiers to talk about it, perhaps.
His five brothers also served in World War II: two in the Army, two in the Navy, one in the Army Air Corps. They all came home.