Five photographs of Robert Lawrence Corbell III as an infant and toddler, 1941–1942, with narrative about his parents Dee and Bob Corbell
Book 2, Page 192 ·1941–1942
Transcription
Photo captions (clockwise from upper left):
Upper left — an infant in a long white gown sitting up, holding a stuffed lamb. Captioned beneath in blue ink:
Robert Lawrence Corbell III — 1941
Upper middle — a small child standing beside a basket of stuffed animals. Captioned:
R. L. Corbell III 1st Xmas 1941
Upper right — a small child in overalls holding a stick or toy gun in a garden, an adult’s legs visible behind him. Captioned beneath:
R. L. C. III NORWALK CONN. 1942
Lower left — a small child on a wheeled toy in a garden, with a tall man in a dark suit and tie (head bowed, looking down at the child) standing beside him. Captioned:
R. L. C. III + J. P. W. 1942 Portsmouth Va
Lower middle — a small child in a smocked dress standing on a lawn. Captioned:
R. L. C. III 18 months
Narrative beneath the photographs (in pencil):
Dee & Bob lived in Richmond until Bob finished medical school. He then interned in Norwalk Conn. — He finished his internship in June 1941 — and went into service. He was stationed at Ft. Belvoir & then at Ft. Benning. He joined the 82nd air borne.
AI Notes
An album page (lined paper) with five small black-and-white snapshots mounted in two rows and a pencilled caption beneath each photograph. Beneath the photo cluster is a multi-line pencil narrative by the compiler about Dee and Bob (her middle daughter Emma Dee Walker Corbell and son-in-law Dr. Robert Corbell Jr.) — Bob’s medical training in Richmond, his internship in Norwalk, Conn., and his army service from June 1941 (Ft. Belvoir, Ft. Benning, the 82nd Airborne). The photographs all show the same little boy — Robert Lawrence Corbell III — at various stages from infancy through about 18 months. The child is Corbell (the upper-left caption reads ‘Robert Lawrence / Corbell III — 1941’); the caption initials ‘R. L. C. III’ are Robert Lawrence Corbell III. The Connecticut place name reads Norwalk, Conn. (Bob’s internship site), and the Georgia post reads Ft. Benning. This Robert Lawrence Corbell III appears to be the eldest Corbell grandchild — born ca. 1940 (he is an infant in 1941 and 18 months in 1942) — and so predates ‘Pucky’ Corbell (b. 13 Nov 1944) in the family birth order.
The child is Robert Lawrence Corbell III, the first child of Emma Dee (“Dee”/“Dee”) Walker Corbell and Dr. Robert Corbell Jr. — Amy’s middle daughter and her physician son-in-law, married 1938. “J. P. W.” in the Portsmouth caption is the compiler’s husband James Pickens Walker Sr., the child’s maternal grandfather (Portsmouth being where the Corbells settled). “Norwalk Conn.” in Fairfield County is where Bob did his internship. The 82nd Airborne was activated August 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, but its first parachute training was at Ft. Benning, Ga. — consistent with the narrative.
The 82nd Airborne Division — reactivated as the U.S. Army’s first airborne division on 15 August 1942 — went on to make combat jumps into Sicily, Salerno, Normandy (D-Day), and Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands. As a battalion surgeon, Dr. Corbell would have served in the medical detachment supporting airborne infantry; surgeons attached to the 82nd were trained as paratroopers themselves.