thedrifter
08-14-06, 05:49 AM
Veteran recalls life at war 60 years ago
By JENNIFER KOVACS Tribune Chronicle
GIRARD — Sixty years ago Angelo DelGenio was on a train on his way home after serving three years in the U.S. Navy during World War II, but he wasn’t so sure that’s where he wanted to be going.
‘‘I wasn’t going to get off,’’ DelGenio said.
Binding close ties with four other men who served alongside him in the close quarters of his destroyer escort, DelGenio wasn’t sure he was ready to go back to his old life on Maple Street in Girard.
But, then again, he did have his fiancee, Elizabeth, who was waiting for his return.
‘‘She was still my girl,’’ he said.
Just celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, the two have four children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren to show that DelGenio, now 83, appeared to have made the right decision.
Each grew up on Maple Street, with DelGenio one of five boys his mother raised alone after the death of her husband. After graduating from Girard High School, he began working at McDonald Steel before being injured in an accident there a short time later.
It was 1942 and he knew he’d soon be drafted by the U.S. Army, so DelGenio decided to enlist in the Navy instead. Eventually, four of the five DelGenio boys did the same.
DelGenio said he then set off for boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill., and later attended Iowa State College, where he received a degree in diesel engine mechanics. From there, all crew members of his ship met in Mare Island, Calif., and prepared for war.
A destroyer escort is basically a smaller ship that sails alongside a destroyer to patrol its waters and refuel its tanks, DelGenio explained. He still remembers the first time he took his watch over the engine room down below in the hull of the boat. He said that’s when his still lingering claustrophobia set in.
DelGenio’s first naval campaign was at the Kwajalein Atoll, and during his 36 months overseas, his ship served along the chain of Gilbert and Marshall islands near Japan.
Not to be used in combat, the ships were only equipped with 3-inch guns and its crews performed the jobs they were assigned. DelGenio was never involved in gunfire, but he saw his fair share of gruesome sights.
Serving as a kind of chauffeur, DelGenio said he would drive captains ashore on small boats and then have a chance to wander around. But on some of his trips inland, he would find mounds of bodies of Japanese soldiers littering the beaches.
‘‘That death smell ... it would get into your clothes, and you’d have to throw them away,’’ he said.
DelGenio still stores memorabilia he picked up on those excursions, like a Japanese song book, flag and piece of a downed plane with bullet holes in it.
Often kept awake by a pilot named by the crew as ‘‘Washing Machine Charlie,’’ DelGenio said their Japanese nemesis would fly his chugging plane overhead for hours at night until eventually dropping a bomb.
Already taking from them countless hours of sleep, ‘‘Charlie’’ cost the troops there an even bigger prize one Christmas Eve when he dropped a bomb on a storage hut that was holding beer for a holiday celebration.
‘‘There was a pile of foam all over,’’ he laughed.
Admitting the engine crew had it pretty good down below the ship, DelGenio said he and his team at the very least could read, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee or make soup. Marines would often go offshore to join them and take advantage of restrooms and kitchens. But that doesn’t mean it was always pleasant down there.
DelGenio recalled when under attack, the crew would have to batten down the hatches of the ship, which meant he was pretty much locked in his tiny, dark room and left to wonder if a missile strike would prevent anyone from getting him out.
‘‘That would get to me,’’ he said.
Combat wasn’t the only time DelGenio was scared, either. A typhoon once hit, nearly flipping his ship a couple of times. A sister ship did sink with all its men on board, he said.
In his final days, DelGenio and his crew were stationed at the Ulithi Atoll. He didn’t know how close they were to Japan, but soon found out when the two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — something that took him some time to understand.
‘‘What is this plutonic bomb? And it wiped out a whole city?’’ he remembered thinking.
While DelGenio may not have understood the attack right away, what he did know is by Aug. 10, 1945, his job was done and the ship was turning around to go home.
After his return to Girard, DelGenio and Elizabeth married after eventually saving up enough rationed food and liquor to have a proper reception. Within a couple of years, their first two children, Tom and Anthony, were born, with Carole and Patti a few years down the road.
The couple watched and waited as their two boys served in Vietnam — Tom enlisting as a Marine and Anthony drafted into the Army. Two grandsons have followed into the military as well.
DelGenio went back to McDonald Steel, where he retired in 1980 when it closed. And today the two still live on Maple Street, where, from time to time, friends from those days of war will stop by when in town. While only two are still alive from his tight-knit five, DelGenio said the group remained close over the years.
‘‘We were a band of brothers,’’ he said.
jkovacs@tribune-chronicle.com
Ellie
By JENNIFER KOVACS Tribune Chronicle
GIRARD — Sixty years ago Angelo DelGenio was on a train on his way home after serving three years in the U.S. Navy during World War II, but he wasn’t so sure that’s where he wanted to be going.
‘‘I wasn’t going to get off,’’ DelGenio said.
Binding close ties with four other men who served alongside him in the close quarters of his destroyer escort, DelGenio wasn’t sure he was ready to go back to his old life on Maple Street in Girard.
But, then again, he did have his fiancee, Elizabeth, who was waiting for his return.
‘‘She was still my girl,’’ he said.
Just celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, the two have four children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren to show that DelGenio, now 83, appeared to have made the right decision.
Each grew up on Maple Street, with DelGenio one of five boys his mother raised alone after the death of her husband. After graduating from Girard High School, he began working at McDonald Steel before being injured in an accident there a short time later.
It was 1942 and he knew he’d soon be drafted by the U.S. Army, so DelGenio decided to enlist in the Navy instead. Eventually, four of the five DelGenio boys did the same.
DelGenio said he then set off for boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill., and later attended Iowa State College, where he received a degree in diesel engine mechanics. From there, all crew members of his ship met in Mare Island, Calif., and prepared for war.
A destroyer escort is basically a smaller ship that sails alongside a destroyer to patrol its waters and refuel its tanks, DelGenio explained. He still remembers the first time he took his watch over the engine room down below in the hull of the boat. He said that’s when his still lingering claustrophobia set in.
DelGenio’s first naval campaign was at the Kwajalein Atoll, and during his 36 months overseas, his ship served along the chain of Gilbert and Marshall islands near Japan.
Not to be used in combat, the ships were only equipped with 3-inch guns and its crews performed the jobs they were assigned. DelGenio was never involved in gunfire, but he saw his fair share of gruesome sights.
Serving as a kind of chauffeur, DelGenio said he would drive captains ashore on small boats and then have a chance to wander around. But on some of his trips inland, he would find mounds of bodies of Japanese soldiers littering the beaches.
‘‘That death smell ... it would get into your clothes, and you’d have to throw them away,’’ he said.
DelGenio still stores memorabilia he picked up on those excursions, like a Japanese song book, flag and piece of a downed plane with bullet holes in it.
Often kept awake by a pilot named by the crew as ‘‘Washing Machine Charlie,’’ DelGenio said their Japanese nemesis would fly his chugging plane overhead for hours at night until eventually dropping a bomb.
Already taking from them countless hours of sleep, ‘‘Charlie’’ cost the troops there an even bigger prize one Christmas Eve when he dropped a bomb on a storage hut that was holding beer for a holiday celebration.
‘‘There was a pile of foam all over,’’ he laughed.
Admitting the engine crew had it pretty good down below the ship, DelGenio said he and his team at the very least could read, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee or make soup. Marines would often go offshore to join them and take advantage of restrooms and kitchens. But that doesn’t mean it was always pleasant down there.
DelGenio recalled when under attack, the crew would have to batten down the hatches of the ship, which meant he was pretty much locked in his tiny, dark room and left to wonder if a missile strike would prevent anyone from getting him out.
‘‘That would get to me,’’ he said.
Combat wasn’t the only time DelGenio was scared, either. A typhoon once hit, nearly flipping his ship a couple of times. A sister ship did sink with all its men on board, he said.
In his final days, DelGenio and his crew were stationed at the Ulithi Atoll. He didn’t know how close they were to Japan, but soon found out when the two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — something that took him some time to understand.
‘‘What is this plutonic bomb? And it wiped out a whole city?’’ he remembered thinking.
While DelGenio may not have understood the attack right away, what he did know is by Aug. 10, 1945, his job was done and the ship was turning around to go home.
After his return to Girard, DelGenio and Elizabeth married after eventually saving up enough rationed food and liquor to have a proper reception. Within a couple of years, their first two children, Tom and Anthony, were born, with Carole and Patti a few years down the road.
The couple watched and waited as their two boys served in Vietnam — Tom enlisting as a Marine and Anthony drafted into the Army. Two grandsons have followed into the military as well.
DelGenio went back to McDonald Steel, where he retired in 1980 when it closed. And today the two still live on Maple Street, where, from time to time, friends from those days of war will stop by when in town. While only two are still alive from his tight-knit five, DelGenio said the group remained close over the years.
‘‘We were a band of brothers,’’ he said.
jkovacs@tribune-chronicle.com
Ellie