Potash, Robert A. (31224431)

Robert A. Potash
Personal details
Born	1921 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	2016
Nativity	United States
Religion	Jewish
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	31224431
Rank	Captain
Rank at Ritchie	Technician Fourth Grade
Camp Ritchie	Class 19 (16 May – 13 July 1944)
Section	6A
Enlisted	Boston, Massachusetts

Interview Listen to Robert A. Potash on Yiddish Book Center oral history.

Research notes on this page are compiled from the source file and later edits. They may be unverified, incomplete, or incorrect, and should not be treated as established fact. Please correct the article or add sources on the talk page. For class-roster terms, see About the data.

Sources & confidence: Treat Research notes as leads, not settled fact. Prefer NARA, the class roster, newspapers, Find a Grave, or published histories for contested claims. Mark unsourced claims with {{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.

Robert A. Potash (1921–2016) was a United States Army soldier who trained at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, in Class 19 and later became a historian of Argentina.

Biography

Robert A. Potash was born in 1921 in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied history at Harvard College and later continued graduate work there. He enlisted from Boston and trained at Camp Ritchie (Class 19), serving overseas as a technician fourth grade; roster records also associate him with Japanese order-of-battle work (Class 18 JapOB).

After the war Potash became a historian specializing in Argentine political and military history (including work associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in later summaries). His memoir Looking Back at My First Eighty Years appeared in 2008. He gave an oral-history interview to the Yiddish Book Center in 2012. Potash died in 2016.

Research notes

• Also Class 18 JapOB
• OB 41
• Interview candidate: Yiddish Book Center oral history (2012) — add to Ritchie Boy Interviews watchlist. Live page once linked MIT; confirm institutional affiliation against memoir/obituary before asserting a single postwar employer.

Gallery

• 
  Robert A. Potash portrait (RB Archive)

Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	95
Nara ASN	31224431
Nara Name	POTASH ROBERT A
Nara State	13
Nara County	17
Nara POE	1306
Nara DOE	171042
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	BI
Nara Branch Code	0
Branch	Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
Nara Term or Enlistment	5
Term of enlistment	Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Defer. Date	0
Nara Source	0
Nara Nativity	13
Nativity.1	MASSACHUSETTS
Nara Year of Birth	21
Nara Race	1
Nara Race Description	White citizen
Nara Education	4
Nara Civilian Occupation	992
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	69
Nara Weight (lbs)	141
Class_ASN	31224431
Class_Name	POTASH, Robert A.
match_method	asn_exact_name_exact
row_source	both

Timeline

• 1921 — Born in Boston, Massachusetts.
• Class 19 — Trained at Camp Ritchie; also associated with Class 18 Japanese order-of-battle work.
• 2008 — Published memoir Looking Back at My First Eighty Years.
• 2012 — Recorded an oral history with the Yiddish Book Center.
• 2016 — Died.

Sources

• Robert A. Potash portrait (RB Archive)
• RB Archive packet for Robert A. Potash (source links)
• Yiddish Book Center oral history interview with Robert A. Potash (2012)
• Robert A. Potash funeral/obituary notice (Douglass Funeral)
• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2016-09-30 (1 post)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Robert A. Potash for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Potash, Robert A. for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: ROBERT A. POTASH.doc)