The orders and maps of an artillery unit did not promise a quiet December in Belgium. James Roberts Fonda was serving with the 106th Infantry Division as German forces launched the offensive remembered as the Battle of the Bulge. His family’s later account places his capture in that campaign.

The archive does not preserve a personal diary of the moment he became a prisoner. It does, however, carry a December 1945 newspaper report, written after he was home, identifying him as a former battery commander and a prisoner of the Germans. His later obituary supplies the family memory of captivity lasting until the war’s closing months, despite attempts by American troops to reach the camp.

For his family, what mattered was not a perfectly reconstructed military itinerary but the difference between the man sent overseas and the one finally returned. In 1945 a newspaper could announce his discharge, his decorations, and his visits to family. The ordinary language of reunion stands in sharp contrast to the uncertainty that must have accompanied news of the German offensive.

James resumed his career with Burroughs after the war, ultimately working for the company for decades. Captivity had interrupted his civilian future; it had not brought that future to an end. The later working life is part of the wartime story too.

American artillery crew in snow-covered woodland positions during World War II.
James Roberts Fonda served as an artillery battery commander with the 106th Infantry Division when the Battle of the Bulge began in December 1944. Captured during the campaign, he eventually returned home after months as a prisoner of war. Historical reconstruction; details and likenesses are interpretive.

Sources and references

  • “Capt. James R. Fonda Receives Discharge,” Troy Record, December 13, 1945, as identified in the original Chapter 9 source list; original newspaper page/column has not been examined.
  • National Archives and Records Administration, World War II Prisoners of War Data File, Record Group 389, James R. Fonda entry (NARA-derived record accessed through Ancestry), documenting Field Artillery service, German captivity, Oflag 13B Hammelburg, and repatriation. The POW database identifies first-lieutenant rank; it does not independently verify the newspaper’s later captain designation or decorations.