East High School - Redjacket Yearbook (Pawtucket, RI)

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COLONEL ROYAL B. LORD

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EAST HIGH HONOR ROLL Co£aue£ Royat R. £vacL Witta d £. R-eautac

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Colonel Royal B. Lord ONE of the most important men in this country's war effort is a Pawtucket High graduate. Colonel Royal B. Lord. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 19, 1900: but as he moved to Pawtucket at the age of three months, he claims Pawtucket as his home town. He attended Pawtucket High School, where he was active for the school paper, Ihe Gleaner. and held the post of athletic editor. He graduated in 1917 and then attended Brown University for two years, where he served in the R. O. T. C. and thus entered West Point in 1919. Here he had a brilliant scholastic record and graduated second in his class in 1923. Here too. in connection with his interest in engineering, he constructed what was then the largest and most modern ice hockey rink in the world. From West Point he went to Fort Munroe Engineering School, where he did excellent work under Admiral Simms. He then went on active duty in the Philippines for three years. In 1926 he returned to the States and was awarded his Master’s Degree by the University of California. Soon afterward he did engineering work on the Mississippi Flood Control system and was given charge of the Passamaquoddy Tidal Project, where he developed a new low-cost home for the $12,000,000 Greenbelt Project. Roy was well known for this five-room castle for $900 . H:, was Chief Engineer for the Farm Security Administration while he developed his pre-fabricated house. His rise in Army rank has been exceptionally rapid. He became First Lieutenant in 1928. Captain in 1935. Major in 1940 (which post he held for only nine months), and finally a Colonel in 1941. For four years he was a professor at West Point. During the past few years he has served as Commander of the Third Engineer Regiment during an eighteen month visit to China and Japan, and has held many vital government positions. Roy also has won his spurs as an inventor. He developed a portable steel pillbox which has rendered the old concrete box obsolete. It is six feet square and holds three men. It is armored to withstand a 75 millimeter shell and. due to the low. protected firing position, can shoot into the underside of a tank and stop it in its tracks. This pillbox takes ten men one and one-half hours to assemble, while the old concrete one takes twenty-eight days to set up. The cost of the Lord pillbox is only one-tenth the cost of the old style model. Roy also has invented a tank trolley which has put the pontoon bridge out of business. This trolley consists of two forty-foot towers between which is strung a heavy wire cable. A tank or truck is driven on to four rope nets, one for each wheel, and is picked up and carried across the obstruction. The cableway is powered by the vehicles it carries and can handle a thirteen ton load on a single installation or a twenty-five ton load on a double hookup. It may be erected in three hours and can carry one vehicle every four minutes. Its cost is one one-hundredth of the cost of a medium pontoon bridge, and it requires only two trucks for transportation as compared with eighty-five trucks needed for the bridge. This trolley also may be very completely and easily camouflaged. At present. Roy is Chief of Operations for Economic Warfare for the United States of America, and is entrusted with the location and allocation of vital raw materials. He is closely affiliated with Henry Agard Wallace and Leon Henderson, and holds a post in the Army Public Relations department under Major General Robert C. Richardson. Jr. The graduating class of 1942 is faced with the probability of Army service. It is not an unpleasant probability. In the Army, as in no other place, the young man has a chance to see himself in his true colors: to discover his true capabilities. Let us all see Roy Lord as an ideal Army man. Let him be an inspiration to each one of us as we dedicate our lives to the service of our country. Harold C. Kinne Wc are deeply indebted to the American Magazine for permission to use the picture of Colonel Lord and his pillbox. Wc regret to state that we were unable to secure a picture of Mr. Beaulac.