Roy spent the war in India servicing military aircraft while wondering if England was really an ally. GIs and British soldiers, he says, were always at odds. "I thought we were at war with the British," he quips. Roy, who was born in Shreveport as the son of a printer, graduated in 1939, enlisted in the Army Air Forces in October of 1941, and was trained as an airplane mechanic. He recalls being en route to India for fifty-six days to his duty station in Bangalore. There, as a sergeant, he worked on engines of bombers, transports, and fighters. He recalls the pervasive hunger in India, and often watched locals dig in the base garbage for food. He says the British stationed nearby despised the Americans, "because the GIs were over in England and they were going with their girlfriends," he says. An accomplished dancer, Roy enjoyed the dances for soldiers while overseas. Returning to the states in May of 1945, Roy was in Shreveport on VJ Day and recalls the revelers downtown. He was sent to California where he continued his work in aircraft maintenance until the war ended. He was discharged in San Bernadino on October 30, 1945. Returning to Shreveport he attended Centenary College briefly on the GI Bill, but found academic supplies on campus scarce. "They didn't have books. It was right after the war. Everybody was out of everything," he says. Roy worked at the Shreveport Times as a linotype operator, and retired from the newspaper in 1985.