Roderick “Roddie” Waring Edmonds was born to Thomas C. Edmonds and Jennie Sexton Edmonds in Knoxville on August 20, 1919. His mother died just before his third birthday, and he and his three brothers were raised by his father, a paper hanger for local wallpapering businesses. Edmonds attended Flenniken Elementary School and Boyd Junior High, before graduating from Knoxville High School in 1938.
Working as a stock clerk after graduation, Roddie joined the US Army on March 17, 1941, at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, amid World War II. Edmonds left training as Master Sergeant of his Co. A, 164th Infantry Replacement Battalion, achieving an expert marksman medal for the carbine and sharpshooter medal for the rifle. Edmonds arrived in Belgium in December 1944 with the 106th Infantry Division, 422nd Infantry Regiment, just four days before Germany launched a major offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge. On December 19, 1944, Edmonds was among those captured by the Nazis and he and his fellow soldiers were forcibly marched for four days to prisoner-of-war (POW) camp Stalag IX-B and later transferred to Stalag IX-A, where Edmonds was the senior non-commissioned officer, thus in charge of the nearly 1300 POWs at the camp.
Their first morning at Stalag IX-A, the Nazi Commandant ordered all Jewish POWs to line up the following day to be separated from the rest of the prisoners. Edmonds instead ordered all 1300 POWs to report. The furious Nazi Commandant aimed his pistol to Edmonds’s head and ordered him to identify the Jewish soldiers in the camp, to which Edmonds replied, “We are all Jews here,” and if he wanted to shoot the Jewish prisoners, he would have to kill them all, therefore committing a war crime. The commandant relented, and Edmonds is recognized as saving some 300 Jewish-American soldiers. Edmonds remained in captivity for 100 days, ultimately returning home in April 1945, separating from the Army in October 1945. Edmonds kept the story to himself, as it only came to light when his son, Chris, tracked down witnesses to the event.
Edmonds served in the Army during the Korean War in the 1st Cavalry division, earning the combat infantryman’s badge. Back home, Edmonds worked for the Knoxville Journal and in sales for Athena Cable Corp. and All-American Mobile Homes.
Edmonds married three times, Marie Solomon (1942), Pauline Surratt (1948), and Mary Ann Watson (1953). He had two sons with Mary Ann, Kim Michael Edmonds and Christopher W. Edmonds. Edmonds died in 1985. In 2015, Yad Vashem awarded Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds as “Righteous Among the Nations,” for his valorous actions at Stalag IX-A, only the fifth American recognized for this honor. A historical marker was placed on Market Street behind the East Tennessee History Center honoring Edmonds in 2020.
Knox County Archives, located on the second floor of the East Tennessee History Center, is proud to honor those who have served our country in the armed forces by preserving the history of their service. Team members at Knox County Archives are digitizing military discharges (military form DD-214) that were registered in Knox County, Tennessee. These permanent records represent every conflict from the American Civil War through the Vietnam War and reveal a great deal about a veteran’s service. This biographical and historical information may not exist in any other form due to a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973; it destroyed an estimated 80% of United States Army discharges from World Wars I and II. Using these rare and important DD-214s, Knox County Archives hopes to share the stories of some of East Tennessee’s veterans.
If you have questions about accessing the DD-214s registered in Knox County, please call 865-215-8800, email archives@knoxlib.org, or visit Knox County Archives at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St., Knoxville, TN 37902.
Research by Zachary Keith, County Archives Digital Assistant
