Seventy six years ago tonight, on a transport ship off the coast of North Africa, my grandfather made his peace with God and entered the second world war. Like his brothers and friends in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan, he had set his blue collar job aside in 1942, kissed his wife of 3 years goodbye, and picked up a rifle. With the 20th Engineer Combat Regiment (later the 1340th Engineer Combat Battalion), he landed in Fedala, North Africa, in early November 1942 as part of Operation Torch. His unit promptly captured and secured the city's police station. That humble success would lead him straight into the maw of World War II:
Kasserine Pass - relieving the 19th Combat Engineer Regiment immediately after their massacre at the Pass.
The Assault on Tunis - acting as one of many forward observers scouting out road networks and road conditions at the front line, in support of the French Africa Corps' line of attack.
The Invasion of Sicily
Omaha Beach 6 Jun 44 - landing on LST 460 at Easy Red Beach, one hour after the first wave, as part of a gap assault team.
Normandy Operations - helped construct a Bailey Bridge at night, by hand, under heavy fire, the night of 9 Jun 44.
Battle of Vossenack - rushed to the front as ad-hoc infantry, his unit repulsed several attacks from the German Army, 8-9 Nov 44.
Bastogne - he spent the first night of the Battle of the Bulge on the front line with nothing more than a rifle, facing the 2nd Panzer Division, while a buddy sat back to back with him, facing west, making sure that their relief didn't shoot at them as they took up their positions. His entire unit - every cook, every engineer, every officer - was paired off in this manner, covering the forest northeast of Bastogne, until the 101st Airborne moved in. A few days later, he would help hold a small stone bridge in a Belgian forest outside of Bastogne, against a night attack by 4 German tanks.
Okinawa - in a quirk of fate, given his age (32) and experience, he and a number of other engineers were re-assigned in the spring of 1945 to prep for Operation Olympic and the invasion of the home islands. He would land at Okinawa in early May 1945, and spent the battle blowing up gun positions and the tunnels inside the cave complex along the Shuri Line.
After 3 straight years of this, he returned home that fall with no physical wounds, but he was emotionally shattered. He spent the next 40 years inside of a bottle. I have no memory of my grandfather sober. He never ate at the table with us. Never came to a ball game. Rarely left the house. He never once spoke about the war, except for one night in the late 70's when he broke down in tears during a family gathering and howled in a drunken stupor "war is hell," 35 years after holding that little stone bridge outside of Bastogne. My grandmother sat with him in the living room and held his hand, as we sat a few feet away and ate in total silence.
There was no treatment for PTSD back then, no idea of what it even was. No counseling. He never once set foot inside of a VA hospital. He returned to the same job he had before the war, as an elevator operator in Manhattan. But to this day, my mother and her brother can't make it through a conversation about their childhood without getting emotional, and even then the conversation doesn't get very far. I never knew exactly why that was until very recently, when we got our hands on some answers, giving us all a clearer picture of his time in the Army, the things he went through, and the price that he paid.
