Dale Robertson - Wikipedia

.Before the Military serve Dale Robertson had been a Cadet at Oklahoma Military Academy in Clairemore, OK. Shown here is 1Lt, Dale Robertson, who as a former enlisted cavalryman attended OCS at Fort Knox, KY and was commissioned a 2Lt and entered the US Army Corps of Engineers in WWII. He served in both the African and the European theater of operations in WWII and received two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. His active duty Military service was from 1940 to 1945.

Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that July 14 is the anniversary of the birth of American actor Dayle Lymoine Robertson best known for his starring roles on television: roving investigator Jim Hardie in the television series Tales of Wells Fargo and Ben Calhoun, the owner of an incomplete railroad line in The Iron Horse.

Tribute to Dale Robertson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkevMqUQH8w

1. Miltary service background .chuckhawks.com/combat_vet.htm
Dale Robertson: Actor & Wounded Combat Veteran
By Major Van Harl, USAF Ret.
"I was in Tulsa, OK attending the largest gun show in the world where I met the Hollywood acting star Dale Robertson. I watched his TV show "Iron Horse" in the 1960s and of course "Death Valley Days." He made 63 movies, many of them being Westerns. His favorite was "The Gambler of Natchez". There was the "Tales of Wells Fargo" TV show and he was on the extremely popular show "Dynasty." He was regularly seen as a guest star on TV shows well into the 1990s ("Murder She Wrote" and "Fantasy Island").
However my first question to Mr. Robertson was "are you a veteran?" The answer was, not only was he a WW II Army veteran, but he was a combat wounded soldier. Mr. Robertson is a native of Oklahoma, born in Harrah. Because he had boxed professionally he was ineligible to play college sports so he decided to attend Claremore Military Academy, in Claremore, OK. He was an all around athlete and earned 32 athletic awards while at Claremore.
Mr. Robertson advised me that he entered the Army in 1943. He took his basic training at Ft. Riley and became an enlisted cavalryman. In 1944 he was sent to Officer Candidate School at Ft. Knox in Kentucky.
2nd Lieutenant Robertson became an Engineering Officer. He was assigned as the platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, C Company of the 322nd Combat Engineers, which was in the 97th Infantry Division. The 322nd was in California practicing amphibious landings on the sunny beaches of Camp San Luis Obispo. The 97th Infantry Division was supposed to be headed to the Pacific when the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium occurred.
While stationed in California, Lieutenant Robertson had a photo taken, that was displayed in the portrait studio. This was how Hollywood discovered him, even before he separated from the Army at the end of WWII. The entire 97th was put on a troop train to New York and on 19 February they sailed for France.
I was able to track down Lt. Colonel Fritz Ahlfeld, US Army Reserve retired, who as a young Lieutenant had been the platoon leader of third platoon, alongside of 2Lt Robertson's 2nd platoon. The amphibious training for attacking islands occupied by the Japanese came into good use, when the 97th was assigned to take the German city of Düsseldorf.
The Sieg River had to be crossed under enemy fire. 2Lt. Robertson and his platoon built a floating bridge that allowed supplies and infantry troops to cross the river. His platoon was responsible for removing mine fields that had been set up on the German side of the Sieg River. All of this was accomplished while under fire from German machine guns, mortars and the dreaded 88mm artillery.
The first two jeeps across the Sieg were blown up by mines. The Germans were not happy that the enemy was on their home soil and the fighting was intensifying. As the Germans were pushed back they would blow up anything that the US Army might be able to use. 2Lt. Robertson, along with the rest of Company C, was charged with repairing whatever they could (such as bridges and roads) or removing what could not be fixed but was in the way (such as mines and burning buildings).
After the capture of Düsseldorf the 97th was sent to the border of Czechoslovakia to liberate the city of Cheb and get the military factories in that city out of the hands of the Germans. The biggest problem for the 322nd Combat Engineers was the minefields that had to be cleared before the infantry and tanks could move forward. 2Lt. Robertson's platoon fought alongside the infantry in order to advance, to remove the mines.
During this operation they were under 88mm artillery fire and Dale Robertson told me he was wounded by shrapnel. I asked him about receiving the Purple Heart. He told me he dressed his own wounds and got on with the mission. He never reported to a military medical unit. With no official record, you get no official recognition. (Note the contrast with the extremely minor shrapnel wound insistently reported by now Massachusetts Senator John Kerry during the Vietnam War that got him sent home before his tour of duty was completed. -Ed.)
The Army tried to recall him during the Korean War. When they did a physical, injures were then made known to the military and he was deemed not qualified for active service. Like most WW II veterans, Dale Robertson got on with his life after the war. He just happened to do it on Hollywood's silver screens."

2. General background from fampeople.com/cat-dale-robertson
Dale Robertson : biography
14 July 1923 – 27 February 2013
Dayle Lymoine Robertson was an American actor best known for his starring roles on television. He played the roving investigator Jim Hardie in the NBC/ABC television series Tales of Wells Fargo, and Ben Calhoun, the owner of an incomplete railroad line in ABC’s The Iron Horse. He was often presented as a deceptively thoughtful but modest western hero. From 1968 to 1970, Robertson was the fourth and final host of the syndicated Death Valley Days anthology series.

Early life
Born in 1923 to Melvin and Vervel Robertson in Harrah in Oklahoma County near Oklahoma City in central Oklahoma, Robertson worked as a professional boxer briefly before enrolling in the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore. He also served in the military before his professional acting career began.Hopwood, Jon C., (accessed May 26, 2010). He served in the United States Army 322nd Combat Engineer Battalion of the 97th Infantry Division in Europe during World War II and was wounded twice. He received Bronze and Silver Star medals.

Career
Robertson began his acting career by chance when he was in the United States Army. Stationed at San Luis Obispo, California, Robertson decided to have a photograph taken for his mother; so he and several other soldiers went to Hollywood to find a photographer. A large copy of his photo was later displayed in the photographer’s shop window.Paregien Sr., Stan, (accessed May 26, 2010) He found himself receiving letters from film agents who wished to represent him. After the war, Robertson stayed in California. Hollywood actor Will Rogers, Jr., gave him this advice: "Don’t ever take a dramatic lesson. They will try to put your voice in a dinner jacket, and people like their hominy and grits in everyday clothes." Robertson thereafter avoided formal acting lessons.
For most of his career, Robertson played in western films and television shows—well over sixty titles in all. His best-remembered series, Tales of Wells Fargo, aired on NBC from 1957 to 1961, when it moved to ABC and expanded to an hour-long program for its final season in 1961-1962. Robertson also did the narration for Tales of Wells Fargo through which he often presented his own commentary on matters of law, morality, and common sense. In its March 30, 1959, cover story on television westerns, Time magazine reported Robertson was 6 feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, and measured 42-34-34. He sometimes made use of his physique in "beefcake" scenes, such as one in 1952’s Return of the Texan where he is seen bare-chested and sweaty, repairing a fence.Time, March 30, 1959, cover story
In the 1966-67 season, Robertson starred in ABC’s The Iron Horse, in which his character wins an incomplete railroad line in a poker game and then decides to manage the company. In 1968, he succeeded Robert Taylor as the host of Death Valley Days, a role formerly held by Stanley Andrews and future U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan. In rebroadcasts, Death Valley Days is often known as Trails West, with Ray Milland in the role of revised host. Though Robertson played a central part in two episodes of CBS’s Murder, She Wrote series with Angela Lansbury, he was not credited in either appearance.
In 1960, Robertson guest starred as himself in NBC’s The Ford Show, starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1962, he similarly appeared on a short-lived western comedy and variety series, ABC’s The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show., (accessed May 26, 2010) In 1963, after Tales of Wells Fargo ended its five-year run, he played the lead role in the first of A.C. Lyles’ second feature westerns, Law of the Lawless.

Robertson created United Screen Arts in 1965p.34 Billboard 21 Aug 1965 which released two of his films, The Man from Button Willow (1965, animated) and One Eyed Soldiers (1966).
In 1981, Robertson was in the original starring cast of ABC’s popular night-time soap opera, Dynasty, playing Walter Lankershim, a character who disappeared after the first season. In 1985, it was revealed in the story line that the character had died off screen. In 1987, he starred as the title character on the NBC crime drama, J.J. Starbuck. Robertson also appeared in the TV series Dallas, during the 1982 season. His character was Frank Crutcher, who appeared in about a half dozen episodes. In December 1993 and January 1994, Robertson appeared in two episodes of the CBS comedy/western Harts of the West in the role of "Zeke Terrell", the brother of series co-star Lloyd Bridges. at the Internet Movie Database During an appearance on The Tonight Show, Robertson said he was of Cherokee ancestry. He joked, "I am the tribe’s West Coast distributor."
He received the Golden Boot Award in 1985, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is also in the Hall of Great Western Performers and the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

Death
In his later years, Robertson and his wife, the former Susan Robbins, whom he married in 1980, had lived on his ranch in Yukon, Oklahoma. He died at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla within San Diego, California, on February 27, 2013, from lung cancer and pneumonia. He was 89 and had a daughter and a granddaughter.

I still watch Dale Robertson on the Western Channel on cable TV on the reruns of "The Tales of Wells Fargo" It a half hour show and usually there are two episodes in a row. It come on right after Maverick with James Garner and Jack Kelly which is a one hour show.