The Stories of our Orange, VA Heroes | Major Robert W. Raup – WWII

Major Robert W. Raup attended Orange County High School and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from Virginia Tech.  He had his entire life planned for himself with a promising career, when he accepted the call to be a P-39 pilot.  He married an Army nurse stationed in Italy and only enjoyed a short honeymoon.  Even after he had received many medals as a fighter pilot in Corsica and Sardinia, he tried to retrofit his aircraft and lost his life in doing so.  Read this story of what he did to the airplane and why the P-39 was a death trap to escape from on the front page of the Fall 2013 edition of the Historical Society Newsletter.

Contributed by Paul Carter, with the Orange County Historical Society, for more information about their mission, resources, programs and to buy books, visit www.orangecovahist.org.