Ann (Deluchie) Jarocki

Farrell, PA

U.S. Army – World War II

A humanitarian at heart, Ann (Deluchie) Jarocki went into nursing after graduating from Farrell High School in 1936. After completing her training, she joined the Red Cross “because they would send nurses to flood areas and hurricanes and tornadoes and I always wanted adventures.”

In 1941, she jumped at the chance to join the army, despite strong objections from her family. Lt. Deluchie served as a nurse in military hospitals in Ft. Lee, VA, and Ft. Benning, GA. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she was among the first to volunteer for overseas service.

On March 1, she and her fellow nurses boarded a 17 ship convoy in New York without knowing where they was headed. When they arrived at the Panama Canal, they knew they were going to the Pacific. Six weeks later they were setting up hospitals on the northeastern coast of Australia.

The American army was fighting the enemy who occupied most of New Guinea, less than 100 miles to the north. Casualties were flown in to the hospitals in Australia. Then, as U.S. forces advanced, Lt. Deluchie volunteered for transfer to a hospital on New Guinea. Although the enemy was being pushed back, they still had the capability of conducting air raids – sometimes even at night when the moon was full.

“The moon was so bright that when we were on night duty we would sit outside the tent and make our notes out there. I never saw such a beautiful moon in all my life.”

But because it was so brilliant, it made targets easily visible for air raids, so they called it the Bombers’ Moon.

After two and a half years in Australia and New Guinea, Lt. Deluchie was discharged from the army. Return from the war brought an end to her military service, but it didn’t diminish her commitment to humanitarian service. She became involved in the Mercer County Association of the Retarded (MCAR), serving as its first president, as well as a member of many committees.

She also volunteered continually wherever she was needed. She did blood pressure screenings at various locations in the Shenango Valley; was a ‘Polio Volunteer’ in 1954 with Dr. Jonas Salk, administering vaccinations and medications to control polio; was a school aide at Monsignor Geno Monti Elementary School, Farrell; and was a camp nurse for many years at summer camps for the mentally challenged.

Audie Murphy

Hunt County, Texas

U.S. Army – World War II

A man wrote songs during the 1960s that were recorded by Dean Martin, Jerry Wallace, Porter Waggoner, Jimmy Dean, Teresa Brewer, Roy Clark, Eddie Arnold, the Johnny Mann Singers, Dick Contino, Harry Nilsson, and many others. Nevertheless, he is virtually unknown as a songwriter.

He is known instead as the man who fought his way to hell and back, and who revisited the journey as an actor in a movie version of his autobiograhy. His name was Audie Murphy.

The most decorated American soldier during World War II, he was awarded 33 medals including the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars for valor, and three Purple Hearts, as well as medals from France and Belgium

His Medal of Honor citation gives a hint of his literally incredible courage:

2d Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, 1 of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machinegun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from 3 sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy’s indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy’s objective.

Of course a citation can’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t mention, for example, that he was just 19 years old on January 26, 1945, when he did all those things. Nor does it mention his size: he was 5’5” tall, and probably a bit heaver than the 112 pounds he weighed when he had taken his army a couple of years earlier.

But maybe not much heavier, since he had just returned to his unit from the hospital. After being wounded in on October 26, 1944, he couldn’t be evacuated for three days because of rain and mud. Gangrene developed in his wound. In the hospital, he lost part of his hip muscle while the gangrene was being cut out.

He rejoined his decimated unit on January 14, 1945. By January 26, only 18 men remained from its maximum strength of 235. Murphy, who had received a battlefield commission just three months earlier, was the only officer left. That made him the company commander.

That’s when Germans tanks and infantry attacked what they knew was a very small unit. They couldn’t have known that they would be defeated by one small soldier.

By any odds, Audie Murphy shouldn’t have survived that battle, much less earlier battles in North Africa, Italy, and France, including invasions of Sicily, Anzio, Salerno, and southern France. He did survive the war – but at great cost. For the rest of his life, he suffered severely from “battle fatigue,” known today as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with the worst that it entails: nightmares, drug addiction, severe and sometimes violent mood swings, etc. He was even arrested on suspicion of assault and attempt to commit murder. Fortunately, he was acquitted of those charges.

In spite of such setbacks, his innate courage enabled him to accomplish many things, including the writing of hit country songs, a movie career that included 44 films, and breeding quarterhorses. Perhaps that courage was never more tested than when he agreed to play himself in the film version of his autobiography, To Hell and Back. Who besides Murphy, after fighting his way to hell and back, would agree to revisit that horrendous journey?

Unfortunately, gambling and bad investments left him in debt by the time he died in a plane crash on May 28, 1971.

He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

Bill Roscoe

Roscoe, Bill

Sharpsville, PA

U.S. Army Air Corps – World War II

On April 8, 1945, Bill Roscoe found himself in the kind of situation where people tend to bargain with God. Like, “Lord, get me out of this and I promise to serve you the rest of my life.”

Bill had already made that commitment when he was much younger, so he made a another one: “Get me out of this and I promise you I will never worry again.”

He was radio operator on a B-17 Flying Fortress when his plane was crippled by anti-aircraft. Instead of bailing out, Bill stayed to help his friend get out of the ball turret gunner’s pod.

The inexperienced crew members were bewildered, afraid to jump. So Bill pushed them out. Failing to count to ten before opening their chutes, they were too close to the plane when a burning wing broke off and threatened to take them all out. The last one to jump, Bill managed the nudge the wing enough for the wind to take it away from the others.

With his chute full of holes, he hit the ground hard, injuring his feet. He was captured by the Gestapo, who marched the prisoners hundreds of miles. They had nothing to eat but bread made from sawdust and potatoes. Prisoners and guards suffered together.

They ended up in Stalag Luft 7A, a prisoner of war camp for airmen. Starvation and severe treatment caused Bill’s weight to drop from 185 to 85 before General Patton’s forces liberated them.

“For ten years after he got out of the service,” said his wife Dee, “Bill was very sick. He was yellow from toxic poisoning. The only thing that pulled him through was Dr. K. W. Bertram, and the Lord.”

At his 90th birthday party in 2005, Bill said that he and Dee had never had an argument. Faithful to the second promise he made to the Lord, he said he lived a no-stress life with a no-stress wife.

He and Dee were also faithful to his promise to serve the Lord. They served as Eucharistic ministers for 20 years, and taught religion for more than twice that long.

Fifty years after the end of the war, Bill was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for that incident that lasted a few minutes in 1945. But he and Dee valued far more the satisfaction they earned through a lifetime of worry-free service to the Lord, to each other, to their family, and to their community.

Claude Musgrove

Musgrove, Claude

Greenville, PA

U.S. Army – World War II

As the 164th Engineer Combat Battalion battled its way through Europe during 1944 and 1945, Claude Musgrove served as the unit’s photographer. He converted a captured German ambulance into a mobile dark room and made an enlarger using a condenser lens from a movie theater.

Inside of Claude’s mobile darkroom

Along the way, he photographed history in the making. His unit was among the first to enter Germany, crossing the famous Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Hitler’s army had failed to destroy the bridge as they were retreating, so 8000 troops of the 9th Armored Division crossed it within 24 hours after capturing it. Claude’s battalion was put in charge of defending the bridge. The Germans threw everything they could at it – bombs, artillery, even frogmen who swam down the Rhine to blow it up. They failed initially, but managed to damage it severely.

“The major in charge of the bridge told the Stars and Stripes that after ten days’ work it was stronger than it ever was. The next day it collapsed and killed him and twenty-three engineers,” Claude said.

Mussolini and Hitler viewing results of assassination attempt

Claude did his best to preserve historical photographs he found in German government buildings. He found more than 500 photographs taken by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer. One shows Hitler and Mussolini inspecting a room destroyed by a bomb in the failed assassination attempt of July 20, 1944.

Another photo triggered a personal memory for Claude. It shows Herman Goering, head of the German Luftwaffe, with Colonel Ernst Udet, the number two ace in World War I, after the Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen).

“In 1935,” Claude said, “I saw him in person at the Cleveland Air Show. He was over here spying on our airports to see what we had. He flew a biplane upside down and picked up a handkerchief off the ground.”

Claude also had two books that each include a viewing apparatus and 100 stereoscopic photographs of Germany and the war. Another book on the history of the Nazis had actual glued-in photographs instead of pictures printed on the pages.

Claude returned to work at Westinghouse. After he retired in 1969, he and his wife Evelyn bought a motel in Clearwater, Florida, which they operated for nine years. After that, they spent winters in Florida and summers in Fredonia. Their family grew to include 18 grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren.

He bought his first computer when he was 88. He used it to digitize the many photographs he had taken and collected.

Daverio, John

John Daverio

Sharon, PA

Enchanted with history

John Daverio has been fascinated with history since he was a kid. He can tell you how many words there are in the Treaty of Versailles, how many Russians were killed during World War II, how many tons of bombs were dropped on Japan after the two atomic bombs, and why the sun never set on the British Empire.

His interest in history was rooted in his own family and in his neighborhood.

“When I was in third grade in what is now the Musser School,” John said, “the teacher one day said, ‘We all have our own language. Here we have English, in Germany they have German, and so on. They all have just one language.’ I got up and I said, ‘In Switzerland they have three languages – Italian, German, and French.’ She said, ‘Now John, where did you ever hear that? I said, ‘From my father and mother.’”

John’s father, Joe Daverio, learned construction with marble, granite, and concrete in his home town of Como, Italy. He worked in Switzerland and Germany before coming to the United States. His brother Sam worked in Switzerland and France.

“My mother’s three sisters settled in France. They wanted to come here, but the husbands said the United States was too violent. So they stayed there and lived through two world wars.”

When Joe Daverio came here in 1905, he worked with the Vasconi brothers, who came from the same part of Italy and worked in the same trade. Then around 1911, he decided to start his own business.

“He did very well, because the country was young and growing, and there was lots of construction. He was a member of the union for 37 years before he passed away in 1942.”

John was born in 1917, seven years after his sister Caroline and seven years before his brother Joe. John got a practical education in geopolitics from his neighborhood in Sharon, which included families from diverse ethnic backgrounds. There were German, Hungarian, Schwabian, Irish, Slovak, and Russian families. Each of them reflected the nations they came from, and mirrored the relationships among them.

After high school, John attended business school in Sharon for a year.

John working on the Crippled Children’s Center in Hermitage, PA, October 1957

“Then some construction work started up. So my dad said it might be better for me to get my apprenticeship card. When I started I was the youngest bricklayer there. Before I retired I got my 50-year gold membership card with the Bricklayers, Masons, and Plasterers Union of Sharon. My brother Joe and Uncle Sam also got gold cards.”

Working hard didn’t dull John’s interest in learning. Nor did his military service during World War II. Late in 1944 he arrived at Tinian Island, the B-29 base from which the United States launched countless aerial assaults on Japan – including the only two nuclear attacks in history. The B-29s flew countless bombing sorties against Japan before the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Few Americans know much about those earlier missions.

“This has never been publicized too much,” John said. “We used 80% napalm. Every bomb load carried almost eight tons of fire and two five hundred pound TNT bombs to spread the fire. We bombed at least 160 cities.”

The Air Force used the B-29s to mine the waters around Japan which effectively shut down shipping between the coast of Asia and Japan.

“We had what they called Torpex bombs. They were magnetic and acoustic mines. We dropped them from Korea all the way down between Japan and the mainland of Asia. The Japanese were not getting any more gas and oil. We knew that the war could not last much longer than the month of July.”

But the Japanese refused to surrender, so on August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bombs.

“But the war did not end with those bombs,” John stressed. “We didn’t hear from the Japanese on the 10th, on the 11th, on the 12th. On the 13th we got orders to load up every B-29 in the Mariana Islands – 850 of them. And each one of those carried maximum weight, eight tons of TNT bombs. On the 14th, after that bombing, they finally surrendered.”

Margaret Sparano Daverio

When John and his brother Joe came back from the war, they resumed their father’s bricklaying business. John remained unmarried until he was 36.

“I had known Margaret Sparano at a distance when we were teenagers because my parents knew her parents. She was very brilliant and attractive. After I came home from the army I wanted to ask her for a date, but I heard she was going with a doctor in Akron. I said oh, well, that leaves a bricklayer out. Then some relation said, ‘No, I don’t think she’s going with anyone.’ So I asked her out and she said okay.”

John and Margaret dated for two years before they got married on November 24, 1953.

“I just liked everything about her,” he said. “She was just my type. She wanted to be a school teacher but her parents didn’t have money to send her to college. But she was well-read and educated herself. She played the piano. She had the same piano teacher as my sister Caroline.”

Johnny four days old

Margaret was a buyer for four departments at Sharon Store. She stayed with the store when it became May’s and then Kauffman’s.

The marriage of John and Margaret turned out to be exceptionally fortunate, a rare combination that provided the genetics and environment to produce a truly exceptional son. Born in 1954, their only child John Joseph Daverio, or Johnny Joe as they called him, started speaking when he was seven months old. He began teaching himself German at the age of six, shortly before he started reading Shakespeare.

John, age 11, playing on the Sharon Senior High stage, January 1966

Johnny took up the violin when he was seven, and gave his first performance with the Youngstown Symphony when he was 13 years old. He advanced rapidly beyond the abilities of local teachers. Mr. Rosenberg, his teacher at YSU, sent a tape to Carnegie Hall when they were conducting a talent search for the National Youth Symphony. John was a finalist and was awarded a four-year scholarship at Tanglewood with the Bernstein New Artists. He played in a televised broadcast at Carnegie Hall when he was 14. He was offered university scholarships to many great universities, including a National Merit Scholarship and a National Council of Teachers Award in English. He accepted one to Boston University, graduating Summa Cum Laude.

John Joseph Daverio after receiving his PhD on May 15, 1983

While he could have pursued a performance career, John chose to be a teacher. He spent his entire career at Boston University, eventually becoming head of the Musicology Department. He became world renowned for his scholarly publications as well as his performance excellence. He lectured at various universities in the United States and Europe, and could speak Italian, French, German, and Greek, and was learning Russian. He gave pre-concert lectures for the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. Two of his colleagues were Russian violinists. They were making preparations for him to perform in Leningrad.

John was known not just for his intelligence and talent, but also for his personality and his love of children. According to a Boston Globe article, “His first stop at his friends’ homes was always the floor, where he would instantly begin playing with whatever game or toy was at hand.”

John with his mother in Boston, 1990

His students praised him for the quality of his preparation, knowledge, and sense of humor. Students came from far away to learn from him. One blind student came from Greece specifically to study music history from him.

John often returned to Sharon to visit his parents. His last visit was in March, 2003.

“He was here visiting his mother in the hospital. He left here early in the morning of March 16. He called at 3:30 that afternoon and said he got to Boston and everything was okay, and said he would be seeing us in three weeks because he was going to give a lecture at Pitt. But that never happened.”

Security cameras at the Boston University Fine Arts building recorded John Joseph leaving the building about 9:30 that evening. Then he simply vanished. A month later his body was found in the Charles River. The cause of death was determined to be drowning, but the case was never solved.

Both John and Margaret had to battle depression. “I lost almost 40 pounds, and Margaret lost a lot of weight, too.”

Margaret passed away in February, 2006. He misses not only her, but also his brother Joe and sister Caroline. Joe had worked with him throughout his career. Caroline was a teacher in the Sharon Schools, Penn State Shenango, and Edinboro University.

Despite these losses, John has gradually recovered his ability to laugh and to share his knowledge of history with others. He has lectured about World War II at Kennedy Catholic High School, and has been invited to speak there again this September.

“I was very pleased with the kids there,” John said. “They were very attentive and asked some very good questions.”

And he continues to read and to learn. He can tell you that the treaty of Versailles contained 80,000 words, that 28 million Russians were killed during World War II, and that our B-29s dropped nearly 7,000 tons of bombs on Japan on August 14, 1945 – five days after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He might also tell you that the sun never set on the British Empire because God didn’t trust them in the dark. So in spite of losing what no one should ever lose, he has kept his mind and his sense of humor.

Dexter Zippay

Sharon, PA

When he was a kid, Dexter Zippay loved airplanes and wanted to learn to fly. While still in high school, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy to become a naval aviator. Unfortunately, he couldn’t pass the eye test. His next choice was to become a U.S. Marine. He enlisted shortly after his 17th birthday and went on active duty on October 21, 1946.

He was trained as a forward observer for naval gunfire. His mission would have been to swim from ship to shore, set up an observation post, then call back coordinates to the ship’s gunfire control center. The job was the forerunner of the Navy SEALs. Dex didn’t get to perform that mission because the war had ended before he enlisted.

Nevertheless, after completing training, Dex found himself heading west over the Pacific while most U.S. troops were sailing east toward their homes in the United States. There were other forces going west across the Pacific to occupy Japan, but Dex was not among them. He was headed for China.

At the time of Japan’s surrender, the Marine Corps’ III Amphibious Corps (IIIAC) had been on Guam training for the invasion of Japan. That invasion wasn’t necessary because of the Japanese surrender, but the Marines of the IIIAC were not sent home. Instead, they were sent to north China to accept the surrender of the Japanese troops there and to assist with the process of getting Japanese civilians and military personnel back to Japan.

This was no simple assignment. It involved dealing with the repatriation of more than 650,000 Japanese in the midst of the battles between the Chinese Nationalists of Chaing Kai-shek and the Communists of Mao Tse-tung. The Marines were also called upon to protect trains transporting food and coal to the cities in the area.

The Marines were supposed to avoid engaging either the Nationalists nor the Chinese in combat, but that wasn’t always possible. Dex told his wife, Florine, about one incident he experienced personally. He had built a radio station up in the mountains, and was operating it with one other Marine. One of them would be inside the hut either resting or operating the station while the other kept guard outside with one machine gun. While Dex was inside, he heard the machine gun start firing. Dex went out to see waves of Chinese soldiers attacking the place. Florine doesn’t know how Dex and his friend survived the attack.

Another time some of his friends decided to go hunting, but Dex didn’t go with them. One of the hunting party was killed by the Chinese. Dex was assigned to the detail that went to recover the body. He told Florine that it was a scary experience because they were surrounded by many armed Chinese wearing bandoliers full of ammunition.

“He said he felt like he was in Terry and the Pirates,” Florine said.

Because they were up in the mountains with limited transportation, Dex learned how to ski.

Dex’s commanding officer had the opportunity to recommend one soldier for Officer Candidate School. He selected Dex.

“Dex would have had to sign up for four more years,” Florine said, “but we wanted to get married. He wrote me a letter saying that the Marine Corps would pay my way to join him in China. I said ‘Sure,’ but my father said, ‘Oh no!’ I was too young. He would have had to sign papers for me to go, but he wouldn’t. So Dexter told his commanding officer that he couldn’t accept the offer. His CO got very angry about it.”

Dex’s mother developed some serious health problems, so he was brought back from China. Shortly after he came back, he married his childhood sweetheart, Florine Kornreich. They lived in Quantico, Virginia, until he completed his service on October 20, 1949.

Dex passed away on May 14, 2015. He and Florine had been married for 66 years. On Veterans Day, November 11, 2015, his cremated remains were interred in the Avenue of 444 Flags at America’s Cemetery, Hermitage, PA.

Don Eichelberger

Eichelberger, Don

Sharpsville, PA

U.S. Army, World War II

What’s a hero? Don Eichelberger says it’s anyone who just does his job when he’s ordered to do it, and doesn’t crawl down into a hole. But men like Eichelberger always apply that to the guy next to him, never to himself.

During 600 days of combat with the Americal Division in the Pacific, crawling into a hole was rarely an option for Eichelberger, unless it was one occupied by enemy soldiers. Starting on the island of Bougainville, he fought as part of a twelve-man reconnaissance squad responsible for going out in search of enemy units.

During November, 1944, his patrol discovered an enemy encampment early in the morning. They called in an infantry unit, and an entire unit of 23 enemy soldiers were killed without a single American casualty. Everyone who participated in the raid was honored with a Bronze Star. According to the citation, “The courage and jungle craft displayed by all members of the patrol is especially meritorious. The careful preparation, skillful execution, and deadly accuracy of fire constitute a masterpiece of jungle fighting.”

After Bougainville, Eichelberger’s recon squad went out on patrols through the torturous jungles of the Philippine islands of Leyte, Cebu, and Negros, sometimes for as long as twenty days. With feet continuously wet from slogging through the jungle, Eichelberger had to be hospitalized for treatment of ulcers on his ankles. He also contracted malaria.

After Negros was considered clear of enemy soldiers, Eichelberger’s unit started amphibious training for what would have been the most devastating and terrifying beach assault ever: the invasion of Japan itself. He is thankful that the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made that unnecessary.

Eichelberger spent three months in the occupation of Japan, then returned home.

“My welcoming was walking into the house and being embraced by my parents. I didn’t have any bells ringing or parades and what have you.”

What he did have were some tokens of what heroes sometimes get: not only two Bronze Stars, but also a Good Conduct medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, Army Commendation Medal, Armed Forces Achievement Medal, Philippine Liberation Medal (from the Philippine government), Army of Occupation Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, Asiatic Pacific Medal with three campaign stars.

So was Don Eichelberger a hero? If you ask him, he’ll tell you no.

But re-read his own definition of a hero, and make up your own mind.

Dr. Benjamin Wood

Sharon, PA

U.S. Army – World War II

Dr. Benjamin Wood came from a family of physicians, and continued the tradition by producing his own family of physicians – with a twist. All five of his sons became physicians; he and four of them served as physicians in the United States Armed Forces.

For the senior Dr. Wood, it wasn’t a matter of choice. He had earned his medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh, then went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for training in pediatrics in 1938. There he met a young lady from South Dakota named LaVaun “Vonnie” Gray. They got married and moved to Cleveland for an internal medicine residency at the Cleveland Clinic.

In the summer of 1941, Dr. Wood got called into the U.S. Army for assignment to North Africa.

“My mother fell apart on the detailer’s desk,” said their son David. “She said I’m all alone in Cleveland and pregnant. You can’t take my husband away from me. The guy shuffled through some papers on his desk and said there was an opening for someone to run a lab in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.”

So Dr. Wood served there until his first son was born. Then he was sent to North Africa. But before he left, Vonnie was pregnant again. This time, however, the pregnancy didn’t stop him from being sent overseas.

In North Africa, Captain Wood served in a mobile army hospital that followed the troops who were chasing Rommel through the desert. After North Africa was secured, he moved with his hospital on up into Sicily.

“Dad had one of those short military jackets,” David said. “It had four hash marks on the sleeve. We asked him what they were for. He said each of them represents six months service overseas. He had wanted to come home earlier, but they told him if he did, he would have to go back and serve even longer. Finally after two years he came home.”

But he wasn’t released from the army at that time. He was sent to San Antonio for tropical medicine training. Fortunately, the war in the Pacific ended before he was deployed there.

He returned to practice pediatrics in Sharon until his death in 1976. All five of his sons – Benjamin, Michael, John, Arthur, and David – are doctors. All but Arthur served in the United States armed forces.

He was survived not only by his wife and sons, but also by fifteen grandchildren and nine grandchildren.

Earl Abbott

Hermitage, PA

US Navy – World War II

“Don’t write about me. Write about the ship.”

That’s what World War II veteran Earl Abbott said when he was asked about his military service.

The ship was the USS Henrico, named after the oldest county in Virginia, was 492-ft long Attack Transport that carried 5,500 tons of cargo, including as many as 28 landing craft, 1500 troops, and assault equipment. There certainly is a lot to write about the service of this truly remarkable ship, from her commissioning in 1943 to her retirement in 1968. However, it’s not possible to write about the ship without telling the stories of men such as Earl Abbott who served as her breath and her heartbeat. Abbott was aboard her only a few of those years, but they were among the most critical.

Abbott was drafted out of high school in March, 1943, to serve in the Navy. After his initial training, he served his whole time aboard the Henrico. He was with her when she participated in the D-Day Normandy invasion and in combat landings in the Pacific.

Barely six months after she was commissioned, she launched twenty-four of the first landing craft to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day during the greatest naval invasion in history.

Earl was Coxswain (driver) of one of those landing craft, loaded with a platoon of soldiers. Many of the craft couldn’t make it all the way to the beach, but Abbott was more fortunate.

“We hit the beach right up on top,” he said. “It was low tide.”

His troops stepped out onto sand, but their fate wasn’t much different from those who had to wade or swim ashore.

“We didn’t know we were going on a suicide mission,” Earl said. “I think the First Division infantry soldiers, who went to hell and back [during the invasions of North Africa and Italy] already knew it.”

So did those who planned the invasion.

“The Coxswains were given a .45 automatic pistol during the invasions. It wasn’t to protect us from the enemy. It was to make sure all the soldiers left the boats at the beach. We never had to use them. That’s the kind of soldiers they were, ready to die if they had to.”

With her troops ashore, the Henrico received casualties from the beach, returning them to southern England later that day. For the next two weeks, she shuttled troops back and forth between England and France.

The USS Henrico

Then she set sail for the Mediterranean. After arriving in Italy, she participated in amphibious rehearsals before landing troops during the invasion of southern France. She supported operations in the Mediterranean for the next three months, then she sailed back to the United States to prepare for combat in the Pacific.

By the end of March, 1945, she was engaged in the landings on Kerama Retto, islands needed as a base of operations to support the invasion of nearby Okinawa. Then, on April 2, the USS Henrico was hit by a Japanese suicide plane carrying two 500-lb. bombs. Forty-nine officers and men died as the entire bridge was blown off the ship.

“I got relieved just before it happened. The guy that relieved me didn’t even know what happened,” Abbott said.

With the ship in flames, and without power to drive the fire fighting equipment, the entire crew put forth a heroic effort to save it.

“We had no water; we couldn’t put the fire out. So we did the best we could. We tried to pump water with hand bilges from the ocean to put the fire out. We got all of the fire extinguishers out of the boats that we could get, and then a destroyer came and helped us with their water. If they hadn’t come, we would have gotten blown up. We were loaded with ammunition, too. And then when the destroyer couldn’t help us anymore, we couldn’t abandon ship because we had no power. We couldn’t lower the boats. So we were drifting all night, and our only chance was for everybody to pitch in, and we put the fire out.”

The Henrico managed to return to Kerama Retto, then sailed to San Francisco under her own power. She arrived there on May 13 and was restored to full service by September. She sailed again with replacement troops to the Philippine Islands. Finally, after having carried troops into the teeth of the enemy, she performed the infinitely more pleasant task of bringing thousands of troops home from the Pacific when the war was over.

Earl Abbott’s military service ended when he was honorably discharged on February 10, 1946. The Henrico’s career, however, continued for another 22 years. She took part in the atomic bomb testing at Bikini Island in 1946 and supported American troops in Tsingtao, China, during 1948-49. During the Korean War, she landed troops at Inchon and provided continuous support of combat operations. She evacuated Nationalist Chinese troops in the Straits of Taiwan in 1954, and supported operations in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. She sailed her final combat missions during the Vietnam War, landing troops at Da Nang and Chu Lai.

Between all these outstanding accomplishments, the USS Henrico kept U.S. and allied armed forces combat ready by participating in countless training exercises. After her distinguished career, she was decommissioned and placed in reserve on February 14, 1968. She was disposed of in October, 1979.

The USS Henrico was awarded three battle stars for service in World War II, nine for the Korean War, and four for Vietnam – a total of sixteen. Every crew member who manned her during war and peace should be as proud of her as Earl Abbott is – and even prouder of themselves.

Written by Joe Zentis

Ed Kochis

Ed Kochis

Greenville

U.S. Army – World War II

For Ed Kochis and his quartermaster unit in North Africa, the major threat to survival wasn’t enemy attack. It was meeting the ordinary needs of everyday life, such as food, water, and shelter.

They had c-rations – at least, when the supply ships weren’t sunk. They had to scrounge food any way they could, and buy it from the locals. One staple was a hard bread that the Arabs soaked in wine.

“We didn’t have any wine,” Kochis said. “We seeped it in onions and water. I went from 225 pounds down to 185. We had one canteen of water a day to bathe and drink.”

For a year and a half, the 76 men in his unit slept in pup tents. Each soldier had a shelter half, so two had to get together to make up a tent. Kochis and his tent mate were both over six feet tall. When it rained, they had to put their duffle bags outside to keep our feet dry.

The unit’s living conditions improved after they moved to Italy, near Foggia. Some of his friends managed to “requisition” cots and some walled tents that could sleep five or six.

The closest Kochis got to the front lines was about ten miles.

“But that was close enough,” he said, “because the ground would shake when big bombs would go off. We had a few bombs dropped near our air field. But we were pretty lucky that way.”

Some of Kochis’s friends were not as lucky. On a day off in Foggia, he went to the movies. “While I was in the movies, I heard this fellow laughing. I said to my buddy who was with me, ‘That sounds like a fellow from Greenville.’ I hollered, ‘Hey, Bill Doyle!’ He said, ‘Who is it?’ I said, ‘Ed Kochis.’

Doyle was a B-17 pilot stationed about ten miles from Kochis. They saw each other a couple of times a week for several months. Then he didn’t show up. He had been fatally shot down over Czechoslovakia.

Kochis’s last few months in the army were nothing like his years overseas. As a PT instructor in Texas, he led calisthenics, played softball twice a day, and had the rest of the day off.

Returning home in 1945, Kochis got a job at the Greenville Motor Club, which became the Mercer County Motor Club. He remained as head of that organization for 41 years.