Soldiers Recall Normandy

> In honor of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, The Queens Courier interviewed veterans who fought in that pivotal invasion of Normandy, France, and others who were overseas in Europe at that time. Some shared their memories of World War II, and others spoke of how that war relates to the United States and the world today.
Ernest Malvicini, of Whitestone, grew up in Manhattan, and was sent to England in November of 1943. He helped as an engineer, getting the equipment ready for the soldiers who needed it.
"I had to know the weapon inside out," he said.
As the auspicious day approached, he saw planes all over the place: "We said, Oh, somethings up…Sergeant said, Everybody grab a tank, and we did. We ended up after a long day’s journey in Southampton [England]." There, they boarded LSTs, military boats, to cross over to Normandy. When they landed, after traveling through and supplying the ground soldiers with equipment, his convoy continued on to other invaded towns.
He recalled one poignant memory during that time: "When we were going through the town of Auchen, what was really funny, well it wasnt funny at all, but we were coming through…and theres this woman cleaning the knocker on her front door. Its a brass knocker. She opened the door, and there was nothing on the back, there was just nothing. It was all destroyed. That knocker was probably her only possession, the only thing she had left."
Jerry Fiore, of Whitestone, grew up in Manhattan and served on the ground as an engineer during the war. His strongest memory was of the buzz bombs of the German militarys design: "Buzz bombs were unmanned planes, or miniature planes, with a very high explosive, very loud and very noisy. And whenever it hit, it would just burst…I counted over 160 buzz bombs that passed over us or near us one day by the reprecussions of the ground."
About D-Day he said: "We knew it was coming, we just didnt know as to when. We knew we were going to be somewhere in France. On D-Day we were at Southampton [England] waiting. We didnt know whether we were going to ship out that day or the next day, or maybe two or three days later. You couldnt leave, you were just stuck there. We followed the infantry all the way over… [and saw] nothing but destruction. Not so much in France, but when we got to Germany it was horrible. The first big city we saw was Auchen. I dont think there was one building standing. Unbelievable."
Ralph Meyers, of Bellerose, still has difficulty talking about the war. He grew up in East New York and was drafted. He served in the 8th air force, in the 486 Bomb group on D-Day at Normandy: "D-Day was rough…because the weather was horrible, the weather was terrible. It’s very sad now when I see D-Day and stuff like that on TV. We were all young, you know. I went in when I was 18. Besides that, I’m Jewish. I had seen what Hitler was doing before because I was in high school and these [European] kids were coming over into the Jewish neighborhoods from Germany and Poland and Switzerlandthose that were lucky, anyway. There was a lot of fury…And Hitler was, well, what could I tell you, he was a monster."
Ramsay Craft, of Kew Garden Hills, worked as a supplier of artillery, firearms, ammunition and food commodities to the soldiers at Normandy and beyond.
"We were designed to carry tanks, but we carried everything under the sun, from food to trucks and gasoline…I went in at Utah Beach, Omaha and Utah is where the destroyers went, and those were our beaches. Omaha was the worst because of the cliffs. They were shooting people down there like sitting ducks. When we went in there at 10:29 that morning with a medic group, we continued back and forth under fire with many cases [both of supplies and ammunition]; that was our job."
About the experience under fire: "This was the first engagement we had under fire. We were frightened, I was only 19."
About the importance of D-Day: "That was the greatest amphibious landing that ever happened in the history of war. There was nothing comparable, this had to be…it couldn’t be done any other way."
Joseph Mastriano, of Queens Village, worked in artillery, operating searchlights and radar, and remembers training in Illinois and North Carolina, before boarding the Queen Mary, "with about 32,000 troops and 4,000 nurses. We arrived in Scotland seven days later," in November of 1943. The troops were split up to work in different positions throughout Scotland, England and Wales. "We helped out the English with spotting German planes because they were bombing London and other big cities almost every night."
A few months later, he was sent onboard a military boat: "When we boarded [around June 1, 1944], they didnt tell us where we were going or anything, but they said something big was happening, and this was going to be like a training. There wasnt any training. That was a lot of baloney. They had us on the ship for almost a week, sailing all around England. When the invasion at Normandy came, we all went there. I think we landed 100,000 troops that first day. We landed in Normandy. The beach was a messbodies of GIs were still piled up. They were tying them up like haystacks, piling them up against heavy equipment, like trucks and things like that."
Charles Arndt, of Richmond Hill, shared his thoughts about the draft, and compared Americas intervention in World War II to the war in Iraq: "With Germany we were getting to stay neutral. No men were prepared for World War II. They were training our guys after Pearl Harbor, they were training them with broomsticks."
Although he did not want to serve in the military initially, and still doesnt think he would have enlisted himself, he thought his time in WWII made him a better man and gave him a good education: "If people wanted to go to school, they can serve when they get out of college. The training would be to their advantage and to ours as a country. I wish they had continued the draft. You spend two years in school training. And women should serve, too, so it will be both fellas and girls."
Artie Forester, of Glendale, was in training when D-Day occurred, and was sent over to Europe shortly thereafter. He spoke about his feelings on Iraq. "I feel that the president made a big mistake. He shouldve gone after the SOB who caused the problem," he said, referring to Osama bin Laden. "We will never win. We will never win that war. Well be walking out like Vietnam."
Vincent Spero, of Flushing, was in North Africa preparing to invade Southern France on D-Day, and followed the forces a few weeks later: "We landed on the beach, and we went up [into France]. We kept going South, chasing the German army and ended up in Bavaria, in Munich."
Spero recalled going through several abandoned German concentration camps: "They had emptied them all out; it was just empty."
He said the climax of the war came for him at the Battle of the Bulge: "The Germans started attacking, I was in the army on the front when they started a counter attack. They broke through the front lines, and we started retreating. But the infantry held them."
Though he said he looked forward to being finished with his time abroad- he had been drafted in 1941- immediately after serving he was sent to the Pacific. "I didnt really want to go," he said when he was drafted, "They had to do a lot of training because we werent ready for war…Id never been out of New York. I didnt know where I was going to go."
His memories of his time in France were grim: "As we traveled along the main road, for miles you could see German graves, which were marked with just crosses. Like, hurry-up graves, dig a hole, throw in the body, and cover it."