Narrative for Joseph Romboli

Full Joseph Romboli Interview

Joseph Romboli was born to Italian immigrants in Durham, Connecticut on April 21, 1926. His father worked in road construction and when younger Joe helped support the family by hunting, trapping and fishing around their house. He was not very aware of current invents in the 1930s, but remembers collecting scrap metal to be sold to Japan and a Fascist cousin who was murdered during a visit to New York City.

He and his classmates were very patriotic, something he says they learned in school, and "enraged" by Pearl Harbor. In fact, he still does not like buying Japanese products. He had no desire to enter the Navy, "the water is not my cup of tea," so was determined to get into any branch of the Army he could. However, he was too young to enlist in 1942 and like many of his peers he feared that when the time came he might be declared 4F - ineligible for military service. He worked in construction until drafted in June, 1944 and was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There he entered the Field Artillery Replacement Training Center and received "excellent training ... the following year we wouldn't have survived" without it. That winter his unit left Boston Harbor to go to England. "And as we were pulling out the sun was going down and we could see the Boston skyline ... And nobody said a word. Finally somebody said, 'I wonder how many of us will see that again?'" They were immediately sent on to to Le Havre, France and arrived on Christmas Day, 1944.

The next morning "they herded us out and onto these cattle cars, packed us in there like sardines. And cold, oh my God. And the next ride was colder yet, from Fontainebleau to Belgium ... that was a real cold one." Joe arrived in the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge and the train travelled only at night to protect them from the Luftwaffe. After a few days they arrived in their final destination, Aachen, Germany. "They had big lines there and these guys from different outfits were there looking for replacements. We carried our specs ... from Fort Meade with us, all our records showing how we were trained and so forth." Because of his training, an artillery officer picked Joe out. "I'll always remember him saying, 'You're now going to be part of the 309th Field Artillery Battalion, the 70th Infantry Division.' He says, "You might have gotten lucky ... Most of those guys are going into infantry regiments.' Then at the same time he says, 'You're going on this number one gun. Two of the boys were killed and two were wounded a couple of days before.'"

Although he says his military service is not a story of great heroism, he stayed in combat until the end of the war in Europe, participating in all the major battles - the Battle of the Bulge, at the West Wall, Remagen and the Ruhr pocket. His first three months were spent in the Ardennes "living like an animal." "It was one of the coldest winters on record, the snowiest and coldest on record they say ... we were lucky if we got one hot meal a day ... I remember one week we lived on D-bars alone." Nights were particularly difficult. "You'd look into the edge of the woods, woods all around you, and you’d swear guys were creeping up on you. Which did happen a couple of times."

Artillery was "the biggest killer. They told us that right in training. I remember the guy saying, 'You are going to be on ... the deadliest piece of equipment on the front line.'" Joe was always amazed when he saw the damaged caused by artillery fire. "You know what a box of the old stick matches looks like? If you were to take them and throw them, that's what those trees looked like." Tree and soldiers were valid targets, but seeing dead civilians upset him. "Civilians were another thing. That I didn’t think was right. You see dead all along the way [who had been] caught in gunfire, like artillery or something. And a lot of people were killed that way."

After some occupation duty and training in Kassel and Berlin, Joe learned his father was sick and got early release. Unfortunately, his dad died six months later of cancer. In 1952 Joe married his wife, Eleanor, and later started his own construction business. Aside from damaging his hearing (earplugs were never issued), he feels the war "made us into better citizens ... I don’t think half of these kids today understand what it was really about, how serious it really was." Looking back on the war there is also "the satisfaction of knowing that we won. We beat the enemy and conquered their homeland ... We used to say, as tough as they were we finally got to them."

Excerpts for Joseph Romboli

He says, "From now on," he says, "I'm going to be known as a prick," he says, “around here. Everything I say you'll do over and over until you achieve 100%." I always remember those words that he said. And he wasn't kidding.

On the way [to the front] were two trucks coming back and I could swear they were bringing two cords, two loads of wood back. So I said to the officer...who picked me up, "Why are they bringing this wood back from the front?" He says, "That's not wood. Those are frozen bodies. They're dead G.I.s." Then I knew I was getting pretty close.

I'd say 25% of the guys didn't make it [through basic training]. They had, they couldn't take it, you know, They must have been brought up somewhere else. One of the exercises...they called...rough and tumble. Two platoons, one on each side and the first guy in each platoon would run at each other, it was like a wresting match...When the weaker guy gave up the guy from, the next guy in line would take his place...About a month into that one morning this big guy, I'll always remember his face. This little guy comes at him and I said, "Oh, my God, he's going to crush this little [guy]." And somehow this little guy turns him over on his stomach and pulled up on him and broke his neck. That was the end of that program, no more after that.

If you were sleeping...or when we fired our guns a couple of guys would try to get an hour's sleep and maybe 2 or 3 guys would do the shooting. And you'd fall asleep, that's how tired you were. You wouldn't even hear that gun go off. Yet, the first time we ever fired, they ever fired this howitzer, we ever heard that thing down at Fort Bragg [in Georgia]. That I'll never forget. They lined us up behind the gun, a crew of maybe in those days, they had a big crew of maybe 12 men. They told us to squat down behind the gun, we had on steel helmets and everything. And when they fired that thing off, it blew the helmets off our heads, we fell over backwards, I don't think I could hear for two days. This is how bad it was. See, at the line you got used to it. But, I can't hear today because of from those blasts, you know. It was like, we compared it to five sticks of dynamite going off next to you.

That was something, let me tell you, quite an education for a young guy in those days. You come back from there you realize how precious life is, boy. Day and nights with no relief. The guys used to say, "Do you think we'll ever see the light of day?"

... the whole main deck...was just loaded with guys. It was 9000 men, I don’t know how they all fit up there, but we were all packed in. And as we were pulling out the sun was going down and we could see the Boston skyline. Boy oh boy, what a lump in your throat that was. And nobody said a word. Finally somebody said, “I wonder how many of us will see that again?”

That was something, let me tell you, quite an education for a young guy in those days. You got back from there you realize how precious life is, boy. Day and nights with no relief. The guys used to say, "Think we'll ever see the light of day?" With everyone shooting at us and freezing, mostly freezing to death. You kept moving all the time or you'd...

And when they finished [the pontoon bridge over the Rhine] that morning we put a smoke screen and covered the bridge and everything was quiet. C battery was first and A battery was behind. And C battery was almost across the bridge and we were right in the middle of it and, oh, all hell broke loose. 88s and...They had us zeroed in, they knew what they were doing. Boy, I'll tell you, that was something. We were lucky. Everybody was bleeding....

You know what a box of the old stick matches look like? If you were to take them and throw them, that's what those trees looked like. In the Ardennes it was the same thing.

I remember saying when I got back, "I'll never complain about anything again in my life. I'm just happy to be back in one piece, compared to what happened to some of the guys ....

"You're now going to be part of the 309th Field Artillery Battalion, the 70th Infantry Division." He says, "You might have gotten lucky," he says, "back there." He says, "Most of those guys are going into infantry regiments.” Then at the same time he says, "You're going on this number one gun. Two of the boys were killed and two were wounded a couple of days before." [laughs]