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Former Marine Corps Sgt. Pete Peterson missed WW II and Korean War
Pete Peterson was lucky. He joined the Marine Corps at 17 in 1946, a few months after the end of World War II. Three years later he got out of the Corps in 1949, a few months before the start of the...
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Staff Sgt. Wilbur Butler bombed Ploesti 9 times in ‘Liberator’
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, when tens of thousands of Allied troops were storming the beaches of Normandy, France, Staff Sgt. Wilbur Butler was flying as nose gunner aboard a B-24 bomber called “Boobie...
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Old soldier stories from WW II never die
The last time Glenn Fackler saw Walter Anstey, his company commander, it was aboard a hospital ship on their way back to the States at the close of World War II. They were both recovering from war...
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“A carrier flight deck is most dangerous place I’ve ever been:” Jim Williams
At 18 Jim Williams of Seminole Lakes subdivision south of Punta Gorda, Fla. became a Navy plane captain aboard four different aircraft carriers during his three years of service in the 1960s. “The...
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Seaman Stanley Fiorini served aboard landing craft at Iwo Jima, Okinawa
The USS Hocking, an attack transport, was a marked ship while still in port at Hilo, Hawaii, even before it sailed for the war zone in 1944. Stanley Fiorini of Port Charlotte, Fla. was a deckhand on...
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Kamikaze hits destroyer escort – 12 sailors killed, 12 sailors injured
In another war during an earlier time, the USS Gilligan would have been a frigate, one of the smallest fighting ships in the fleet. DE-508 was 306 feet in length with a couple of 5.8 inch main guns...
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Sgt. Clarence Tuma fought at ‘The Bulge’& near ‘Malmedy Massacre’
Shortly after graduating from high school in 1943, Clarence Tuma was drafted into the Army, went to basic at Fort Stuart, Ga. and traveled by ship to Europe as a member of the 789th Anti-Aircraft...
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Two old soldiers find each other – They were in the Army in Korea 43 years ago
It was like old times when Sal Russotto of Port Charlotte, Fla. and Charles Wilson of Tampa, Fla. two Korean era vets, met for the first time in 43 years, at Russotto’s home. They had last seen each...
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Col. Dominic Ruggerio was U.S. Army Cavalry officer from head to toe
After graduating with a double major in English and Psychology from Norwich University in Northfield, Vt. in 1961, Dominic Ruggerio joined the Army as a 2nd lieutenant. He went to basic at Fort Knox,...
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WWII Vet and his crew pursued Japanese fleet at Battle of Midway Island
Frank Arcidiacono was the radio operation aboard a U.S. Navy seaplane assigned to find Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto’s armada. The huge Japanese fleet was steaming toward Midway Island in the North Pacific on...
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Typing made all the difference for Seaman Duane Payne aboard destroyer USS...
Knowing how to type made former Seaman Duane Payne’s 22-months in the U.S. Navy during the late 50s a walk in the park. It was an outstanding tour of duty, or so he recalled with pleasure more than...
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He bailed out of flaming A-20 Havoc bomber over English Channel in WW II
“Leading a formation of Havocs–A-20, twin-engine attack bombers–that dropped their bombs on a Nazi command headquarters in France and were on their way back to base when the German guns below got their...
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This picture was American soldier’s clue in WW II
Pete Marlo of Holiday Estates in Englewood served in the 62nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion from Totten, Long Island, N.Y. His unit was attached to Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army during part of...
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Soldier fought Germans in Appian Mountains during World War II
On Oct.22, 1942 Tony Di Gregorio of Rotonda, Fla. was drafted into the Army. He was 21. The South Philly soldier took his basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It took until the summer of 1944...
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Barney Jimerson, a Seneca Indian, joined 11th Airborne during Cold War
“Barney” Jimerson of Gardens of Gulf Cove, south of Englewood, Fla., is a full blooded Seneca Indian, born in Elco, N.Y., He grew up, graduated from high school in the Jamestown, N.y. area and...
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Ray Griffith flew 35 B-17 missions over France & Germany in WW II
After his first mission over Germany as a navigator aboard a B-17 bomber during World War II, 1st Lt. Ray Griffith of Lake Suzy, Fla. wrote in a pocket notebook he carried during the war: ‘I’m not...
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Sgt. Randy McConnell received 7 Purple Hearts, more than any other living...
Randy McConnell of Nokomis, Fla. received seven Purple Hearts, more than any other living American soldier, for six months of intensive fighting with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam during the...
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Tuskegee Airman tells his tale – Dr. Yenwith Whitney flew 34 missions over...
World War II was the most segregated war the United States ever fought, according Dr. Yenwith Whitney, a former Tuskegee Airman from Sarasota, Fla. “Many commanders didn’t want blacks doing anything...
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He supported the cause of black Marines while serving in the Corps during WWII
Bud Aronson , who lives on Manasota Key, Fla. has always favored the underdog, even when he served in the Marine Corps during World War II. Those days in the Corps there were no black officers, he...
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Glen Johnson served aboard USS John Rodgers throughout the Pacific in WW II
Glen Johnson of Tropic Palm mobile-home park, south of Punta Gorda, Fla. went to war right out of high school in mid-July 1943. After boot camp he and a group of other sailors took a banana boat to...
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