Memorial

More information

Robert E. Bender attended John Adams High School where he played baseball and football.

Following graduation, Bender worked for the Jamaica Water Supply and continued to play baseball with the Jamaica Water Bombers, champions of the Queens Alliance three consecutive years. The Queens Alliance was an amateur baseball league of teams primarily from Queens with a few teams from Brooklyn and some from Nassau County. Professional baseball scouts thought highly of the Queens Alliance as it was a fertile ground for young prospects. It was considered to be the best amateur baseball league in the United States. The Queens Alliance was formed in 1927 by local businessman Hank Hasel (Hasel ran the league, along with the Queens-Nassau League, until his death in 1961). At its peak in 1941, there were 68 teams playing in the Queens Alliance, often drawing crowds of several thousand at places like Sherwood Oval, Dunton Oval and Farmers Oval. Many Queens Alliance players graduated to play professional baseball. Phil Rizzuto, Marius Russo, Sid Gordon and Mickey Harris all played in the Queens Alliance.

In February 1942, Bender entered military service. After four months of basic training he was stationed in Iceland for 18 months, then assigned to Company E, Second Battalion, 406th Infantry Regiment of the 102nd Infantry Division in Europe. As the Division advanced across the Roer River and into Germany, Private First Class Bender was wounded on February 25, 1945. He spent three weeks in hospital before returning to the front line.

He was part of a patrol which was to cross the Elbe River at Havelberg to pick up German prisoners. The patrol was enveloped by SS troops in armored cars and of the original total of twenty one men, records reveal that sixteen men were taken prisoner and later released. Field investigations conducted in the area on 30 March, 22 November and 18 December 1948 failed in the recovery of the remains of two men, Sgt Lance and Pvt Nick Botsis who are remembered at the Walls of the Missing at Margraten. Two other patrol members, Robert Bender and Kurtiss P. Holmquist are interred at Ardennes.