Service Spans The Decades
Four veterans, three with local ties will be honored at the annual Maspeth Memorial Day Parade to commemorate their years in service to the United States Armed Forces on Sunday, May 25, in Maspeth.
Retired Capt. Laura Zimmermann has been announced as the speaker, in-line with this year’s parade theme: Maspeth honors women in the military.
The parade will also honor veterans Leo J. Wasil, who fought in the Second World War, Anthony Simone, a soldier during the Korean war and Jane Crowley, who joined the United States Marine Corp women’s Service in 1943.
The parade will begin at 1:00 p.m. at WaIter A. Garlinge Memorial Park, located at 72nd Street and Grand Avenue in Maspeth, with a memorial service to start at 2 p.m.
Wasil, originally Wasilkowski, and changed after the war, enlisted six months into the conflict and flew 35 combat missions during WWII as a radio operator, mechanic and gunner. Born in Laurel Hill, Wasil was raised in Brooklyn and moved to Maspeth upon his return from Europe, remaining in Queens ever since.
For his service during the War, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal, the European- African-Middle-Eastern Campaign Medal and a Warsaw Uprising Cross. Stateside he worked as an NYC Police Officer for 23 years.
On perhaps his most harrowing mission, while on a bombing operation over Germany, the crew dropped their payload but one bomb got stuck halfway through the bomb bay doors. The crew could not land with a live bomb onboard, so the pilot turned to Wasil to clear the live ordinance. After several hours, it was released over the ocean, allowing the fuel depleted B-17 to return safely to base.
The days parade events all kickoff at 12:15 p.m. with a colors mass, then a memorial ceremony at 12:30. Following the parade, memorial services for deceased veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, The Persian Gulf and Operation Iraqi Freedom will be honored.
“Lefty” Simone was born and raised in Bushwick. He was drafted to fight in Korea in January 1952, at the height of the conflict. At Fort Hood he was trained as a tanker, but requested to return to an infantry unit, and was trained as a gun mechanic.
Upon arrival on the peninsula, he was assigned to 780th Field Artillery Battalion to fight in the Mung Dung Valley, known infamously as “Heartbreak Ridge”. Somehow he survived his tour, but recalls seeing his best friend “Tutty, disintegrated” with nothing to send home to his family, he said.
The night of July 27, 1952, Simone was Corporal of the Guard, assigned to protect the perimeter with only hours before the armistice became official. All of the men on both sides of the conflict knew fighting would end at 10 p.m., the order was to survive and pray until then, Simone said. He lived through the war, which was relatively short, but exceptionally bloody as nearly five million people perished and almost 40,000 Americans were killed. Three months after the armistice, Simone boarded the USS Patrick back to the states.
Back in the U.S. he married his wife Rose, and was later blessed with three children. Rose and Anthony have been married for 57 years and reside in Glendale.
For his time, Simone earned a Korean Service Medal with two bronze service stars, a United Nations Service Medal and a National Defense Service Medal.
As a civilian, Simone spent six years with the Chrysler Corporation, and forty more as an insurance and real estate broker.
The parade speaker, Zimmermann enlisted in 1976 and was trained at Fort McClellan, Alabama. She earned the rank of Sargeant Fist Class, working as Chief Ward Master of the 343rd Evac Hospital at Forth Hamilton in Brooklyn. After many years in various positions at Fort Hamilton, she retired in April 2000. For her service she earned the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal Service Ribbon, an Army Achievement Medal and an Armed Forces Reserve Component Achievement Medal.
Crowley is originally from Whitehall, a small town in Washington County. She served for three years as a Private First Class and resigned her commission after Japan’s surrender.
She has remained engaged in civic life as a community activist and editor of the Maspeth Chronicle. Crowley was also active in working to restore the Queens Historical Society, and served as the executive director of Maspeth Town Hall. She was previously the grand marshal of the parade in 1993.
After beginning at 72nd Street, the paraders will walk down Grand Avenue to the Frank Kowalinski American Legion Post, and end their route in front of the Knights of columbus at 69th Lane.
Parade organizers are advising residents to not park along parade route from 12 to 3 p.m.
