One of our longest attending veterans, Frank Niklas, passed away earlier this month.  Frank was a veteran of the 2nd Division which landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day plus one, June 7, 1944.  He fought with the division in the Battle of the Bulge, when his company was overrun, and he hid out in the woods for two weeks without food or shelter.  Frank tells his story in this video, shot in November.  We’ll miss you, Frank!

A few weeks ago, one of our vets, Nick Steri, called to say he planned to visit an old crew mate, the other remaining survivor of LSM 32, the Landing Ship, Medium Nick served on in the Pacific in WWII.  The crewmate, Jack Collins, lives in Binghamton, NY.  One Thursday, Nick flew from Pittsburgh to Binghamton to visit his old friend.  A very sharp and kind reporter, Matt Porter of WBNG-TV, did this nice story on the reunion:

Binghamton, NY (WBNG Binghamton) Jack Collins was only 17 years old when he went to war.

And now 67 years later, he’s about to meet up with his only surviving shipmate, Nick Steri.

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When asked what he will do when he sees Steri for the first time, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. He sent a hat to me, he wants me to wear it when I get there, so I will.”

Getting in the car and driving to the airport, Collins was calm as if going on any other trip.

But nothing could prepare the 86-year-old sailor for the moment to come.

As the 85-year-old Steri walked out of the gate, cane in hand, in a red navy jacket, Collins broke down and cried.

“You haven’t changed in 67 years, old buddy,” called out Steri.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Collins replied.

Like magnets, the two instantly walked and embraced.

As the two held each other, Steri told Collins, “We;re still here. We’re still walking.”

“That’s right,” Collins said.

In a nod, Steri added, “I see you’ve got the hat. I’ve got the old one.”

Moments after Steri’s arrival, Collins had to take a seat overcome by emotion.

“It’s been a long time Nick,” Collins said tearfully.

“Yes, a long time,” Steri replied.

At Collins’ home in Binghamton, the men were upbeat and excited as if they were 17 again.

They enjoyed the moment, the product of a difficult mission.

“There’s two or three times we tried to get together,” said Collins, “And always something would happen. And then he called me up a month ago and said, I’m gonna come up and see ya”

Steri said he was glad to make the meeting happen.

“Because we’ve talked so much and we’re both not really young,” he said.

The two had almost seven decades of catching up to do.

“My youngest grand daughter,” Steri told Collins, “She’s pitching softball. Fast pitch.”

Amidst laughs and tears about days past, they hope future generations will take note.

“The air you breathe, it costs you,” said Steri, “It didn’t cost you, but it cost a lot of your friends and relatives.”

Two men from a ship of just 60, finding each other one more time.

Pittsburgh’s WWII Memorial has been long in the making, and a final fundraising effort is needed to begin construction.  Last week, the WWII Memorial committee held a kickoff event for this last push, hosting a USO-style swing music performance in Market Square.  Several of our VBC vets were in attendance, including Coast Guard veteran George Herwig and Merchant Marine Howard Pfeifer, who were interviewed on KDKA News.  Read the story here.

Fifteen years ago, one our VBC board members, Vietnam veteran George D’Angelo, founded an organization called Friends of Danang (FOD) that returns veterans to Vietnam to do humanitarian work.

Watch this short new video on FOD and see George, along with co-founders Tony Accamando, Ed Kelly, and others discuss their terrific work.

I’ve been seeing one of our veterans, George Cahill, appearing on the news lately with the arrival in Pittsburgh of the Liberty Belle, a vintage B-17 restored to its original glory.  George was a tailgunner and togglier on a B-17 and flew missions over Germany with the Eight Air Force.

Photographer Andy Marchese and I will be doing a photo shoot with George and a half-dozen other B-17 veterans at the Allegheny County airport on Saturday.  In the mean time, read about George’s last visit with his old friend in May:

Several people recently alerted me to this worthy cause sponsored by the non-profit Twilight Wish organization.

James Hall, is a disabled World War II veteran. Hall currently resides in the Masonic Home of New Jersey in Burlington. His wish is to attend the reunion of the 6th Marine Division in September in Portland, Oregon. One of only two surviving platoon members, Hall feels this is his final opportunity to attend the Marines’ reunion. Hall, who was the medic for his platoon, and his companion already have their hotel and train tickets booked, but need help with travel expenses to get him to this final reunion.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hall was only 16, so he lied about his age and enlisted. He soon found himself on board a ship headed for combat in the South Pacific. His division landed on Okinawa in April of 1945 and during an attack by Japanese snipers, Hall was shot twice in the lower abdomen, leaving him paralyzed in the legs. Despite his injuries, he managed to crawl to another critically injured Marine and treated him, but the injured Marine died in his arms. For his bravery, Hall received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

If you can help make this honorable veteran’s wish come true, please donate today.

See more at the Twilight Wish website.

By Len Barcousky / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An online archive devoted to preserving firsthand accounts of military service by southwestern Pennsylvania residents has doubled its holdings following a recent event at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum.

About 150 veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam attended weekend activities at the military museum in Oakland.

About 50 of the participants took part in video or photographic recording of their experiences during the nation’s conflicts. Those newest multimedia narratives and images will be added to a similar-sized collection of materials begun in 2011.

The event, which included lunch and a museum tour, marked the launch of a partnership between Soldiers & Sailors and “Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Transmedia Oral History Initiative.”

“Telling a story with artifacts can only share a part of a veteran’s story,” John F. McCabe, Soldiers & Sailors president, said in a statement. “But, to watch them tell their story and see their emotions firsthand will help future generations make a connection.”

Saturday’s “Celebrations of Veterans” event was an expanded version of the monthly Veterans Breakfast Club’s meetings organized by Todd DePastino. Mr. DePastino is one of the original partners in the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh effort.

It began last year when Kevin Farkas, a Navy veteran and Beaver County native, started to record other veterans’ stories for their families. That Social Voice Project’s Veteran Voices effort expanded earlier this year into a multimedia partnership that uses videography and still photography to preserve voices and images of Pittsburgh-area veterans from all branches of military service.

In addition to Mr. Farkas and Mr. DePastino, others involved in the Veteran Voices partnership include Chris Rolinson of StartPoint Media Inc. and Andy Marchese of Andy Marchese Photography.

Soldiers & Sailors had sought to do its own recording of veterans stories, but the museum had limited resources to devote to the project, Mr. McCabe said. Soldiers & Sailors, however, can archive current and new “Veteran Voices” materials collected through the partnership.

On two days each month, veterans will be invited to Soldiers & Sailors to share their stories. Museum curators plan to provide the vets with artifacts from their eras of service to help jog their memories.

Some of the materials collected so far are available on the project’s website, veteranvoicesofpittsburgh.com. Veterans can register to do an interview on that site or by calling Mr. DePastino at 412-623-9029.

Veterans interested in registering for future events with the Veterans Breakfast Club can get more information at the nonprofit’s website, veteransbreakfastclub.com.

As part of an effort to make the “Veteran Voices” materials more accessible to the public, Soldiers & Sailors is seeking funding to create a digital exhibit at the museum, spokeswoman Colleen Elms said.

Adam Shumovich of Pittsburgh, PA was drafted into the US Navy during WW II and sailed aboard the submarine tender, USS Sperry (As-12).

A submarine rigging accident and a bout with a rare form of malaria eventually sent him to Pearl Harbor and then home before the war ended. Instead of being welcomed home, some people made him feel as though he was imposing on their lucrative wartime job opportunities. ”You should have stayed away,” he was told, “you’re taking up somebody else’s job.”

Adam Shumovich from StartPoint Media on Vimeo.

When the war ended in the Pacific, “I don’t remember any celebrations here in Pittsburgh of the Japanese surrender.  I think a lot of civilians that had jobs were afraid that they’d be out of a job.”

Eventually Mr. Shumovich used the GI Bill “to become something in my life,” he says.   After studying photography, he started a studio in the West End of Pittsburgh.

Chris Rolinson interviewed Mr. Shumovich at his home in June 2012.

Project compiles the tales of Pittsburghers who took part in the Normandy invasion and other epic battles of World War II

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Troops wade ashore in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.

“Today, the invasion site has assumed the aspects of memorial beauty. A military cemetery sits atop a hill, its flags fluttering in the breeze. Here lie men of the First and 29th Infantry divisions, precious tokens of the D-Day cost.

“In their memory, a nation dedicated to complete victory pauses today to say: ‘Our thanks to you. We’ll never forget.’ ”

The Pittsburgh Press wrote those words on June 6, 1945 — the first anniversary of the Normandy invasion.

Today is the 68th anniversary and America has not forgotten, but the veterans of Normandy — and all the other epic World War II campaigns — are fast dwindling.

Now a new oral history project seeks to preserve their stories before it’s too late.

Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh, a nonprofit that records the experiences of vets from all wars, has teamed up with Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall to videotape veteran interviews at the hall and permanently archive the stories there.

The idea grew out of the Veterans Breakfast Club, a storytelling venture run by Todd DePastino of Mt. Lebanon, a history professor at Waynesburg University and author of a 2008 book on Bill Mauldin, the famed World War II cartoonist who created the “Willie and Joe” characters.

After hosting breakfasts and hearing war stories throughout the region, he joined forces with Kevin Farkas, director of The Social Voice Project, another nonprofit oral history initiative who started recording veterans in 2011.

“I do the audio, he does the writing,” said Mr. Farkas, a Navy veteran from Beaver County. “We want to capture their stories. They need to be preserved. We understand their sacrifice. These are our stories. These are Pittsburghers.”

The multimedia team — Mr. DePastino calls it “transmedia” — also includes a photographer, Andy Marchese, and Chris Rolinson of StartPoint Media, who is also a Point Park University photojournalism professor.

They plan to interview and record vets from all wars, but for now the effort is focused on World War II because the men who fought in it are dying out.

About 270,000 of them died last year and another 248,000 are projected to die this year, according to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Of the 16 million who served, fewer than 1.5 million are left.

Two among them are local D-Day vets Warren Goss, 87, and Frank Gervasi, 92, whom the Voices project interviewed and videotaped at Soldiers & Sailors on May 9.

Mr. Goss, a self-described Shaler country boy, and Mr. Gervasi, a former mill worker from Vandergrift, showed up with their medals and photo albums and posed with guns, boots and helmets.

And they told their stories, in bits and pieces. Typical of World War II vets, they had rarely discussed the war over the years with anyone, and when they did talk they tended to leave out the bad stuff.

But both saw plenty of that.

Mr. Goss, who now lives in Ohio Township, was drafted in 1943 and landed on Utah Beach as a rifleman with the 531st Special Brigade, an engineer battalion that had to clear the beaches.

His job?

“Shoot Germans,” he said. “I was a good shot, too.”

Before June 6, Mr. Goss had spent almost all of his time in England training at Slapton Sands for the invasion. And it was there that he saw one of the least-known incidents of the war.

In April, the Allies were practicing for D-Day when German E-boats attacked, killing 946 Americans and wounding 200 others. More men died in that exercise than were later killed on Utah Beach, but the episode remained a secret.

“We weren’t even allowed to talk about it amongst ourselves,” said Mr. Goss, who choked up at the memory.

D-Day to him was “just another exercise” — until things started to go wrong.

“Everything you trained for doesn’t really work when you get there,” he said. “The training was good, but things happen that you don’t expect to happen. You didn’t expect so many boats to get sunk. You didn’t expect to see so many guys lying in the water. You didn’t expect to see a Higgins boat disappear. You didn’t expect the water to be so rough.”

On the beach, he noticed Germans were shooting at obstacles, not at him. He realized they were firing at mines tied to the obstacles in order to detonate them.

“I knew I had to get away from them,” he said. “[Everything] just happens so fast. They taught us to do things instinctively. You just don’t question it. I just thank God I was at Utah Beach. The guys on Omaha had it much worse. I was very fortunate. Utah Beach was bad enough for me.”

Mr. Goss and his unit moved inland, where their job was to take out German bunkers. A German officer ran out of one bunker and shot a man next to Mr. Goss with a Luger. The Americans then ventilated the German.

“He was so full of holes,” he recalled. “They never quit shooting him until his nerves quit. That’s the first German I saw shot.”

Mr. Goss, like many combat vets, remembered the light-hearted stories as vividly as the horror — such as the time he needed to relieve himself.

“I was squatting down there doing my business and a sniper took a shot at me,” he remembered. “I ran around that pillbox holding up my pants.”

He later had to go back and retrieve his helmet and rifle.

“I really got harassment after that,” he laughed.

After securing enemy bunkers at Normandy, Mr. Goss fought across France and later saw action in the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr Valley.

Mr. Gervasi served with the First Infantry in North Africa and fought at Kasserine Pass, where U.S. forces first met the German Army and were badly mauled by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. He later fought in the Sicily campaign and then landed at Omaha beach.

Approaching the shore that day through the rough water, with artillery roaring overhead, he wasn’t afraid to die.

“I think most of the men weren’t worried about dying,” he said. “They were worried about getting wounded and being crippled for the rest of their lives. Another thing is, they worried more about their people back home than themselves. I know that’s the way I felt.”

Many of the boats got nowhere near the beach, disgorging men into the water.

He went ashore with 225 men. At the end of the day, 58 were left, although a few others later filtered in.

The men fought their way to the infamous hedgerows, where the invasion bogged down. “The worst thing in the world was the hedgerows,” Mr. Gervasi said.

During the St. Lo breakthrough in July, he was wounded in a mortar barrage. He rejoined his division in September and battled his way into Germany.

It was there that nearly constant combat caught up to him. A fellow soldier forgot to unload his rifle and accidentally fired a shot over Mr. Gervasi’s head. He’d been in combat for 300 days and broke down from battle fatigue.

“I got the shakes,” he said. “I couldn’t stop. Up front too long. Three hundred days is a long time.”

He was taken out of the line and sent to officers’ candidate school. The war was over for him.

He returned to the U.S. in one piece and said he never suffered further from what today would be called post-traumatic stress.

Back home, he got on with his life and made something of it, as did Mr. Goss and hundreds of thousands of other servicemen who took part in the largest invasion in history.

Now their stories — and many others from a fading generation — will be preserved forever, both online at veteranvoicesofpittsburgh.com and at Soldiers & Sailors.

“Every veteran has a story,” said Mr. DePastino, who is working on a book about Pittsburgh’s World War II veterans with Mr. Farkas and Mr. Marchese. “These interviews remind us that history is built one story at a time.”

Torsten Ove: tove@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1510.
Read more: http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/12158/1237226-455-0.stm#ixzz1x1AM2AaI