Linda Grisolia

Air Force Major Peter Belmonte

A navigator on a KC-135 Stratotanker for the Air Force, Peter Belmonte’s job was to usher aircraft toward what he called “controlled collisions” with planes that required refueling.

The middle of three children, Peter Belmonte was born in Waukegan, Illinois, to Louis and Eva Spizzirri Belmonte. His mother emigrated from Marano Marchesato in Calabria, and his father’s ancestors were from that same region.

Belmonte’s paternal grandmother lived with them, and he saw relatives from both sides of the family weekly. “Sunday was the day of choice,” Belmonte recalls. “Somebody was dropping by somewhere.” His mother made spaghetti with a sauce that cooked all day, in addition to other specialties. “When I was a kid, my mother’s lasagna was my favorite,” he adds.

Belmonte graduated from Greenwood Grade School, Jack Benny Junior High School and Waukegan East High School, the latter in 1979. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force during his senior year under a program that allowed him to graduate and then go on active duty. Always a history buff, Belmonte became interested in military history after researching a Civil War sword he found in his grandmother’s closet. That interest, along with his fondness for playing Army as a child, inspired Belmonte to enlist.

He completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas; learned to be a pay clerk at Sheppard AFB, Texas; and was stationed at Grissom AFB, Indiana, as a military pay clerk. “It was a good, clean office job,” Belmonte says. While on duty, he spoke with aircrew members from KC-135 Stratotankers and thought, “Gee, this looks more interesting than being a pay clerk. I’d like to fly.” He decided to become a navigator. Belmonte took college classes while off duty, applied for and was granted an ROTC scholarship at Purdue University and was released early from active duty to pursue his degree. He graduated with a bachelor of science in mathematics and a commission as second lieutenant in the Air Force. Belmonte then returned to active duty and attended navigator school at Mather AFB, California.

After completing survival training at Fairchild AFB, Washington, and KC-135 training at Castle AFB, California, Belmonte was assigned to the 380th Air Refueling Squadron at Plattsburgh AFB, New York.

The KC-135 Stratotanker refuels military planes while both are in the air. As navigator, Belmonte’s duty was to sync up his tanker with the receiving aircraft. “I had to make sure the airplane was at the correct place at the correct altitude at the correct time to meet up with the plane we were going to get fuel to,” Belmonte says. “Basically, every time you do air refueling, it is literally a controlled midair collision.” The planes touch while the fuel is pumped, which changes the center of gravity as well as weights and balances. “It’s a complicated process,” Belmonte says. “Everybody’s got to pay attention.” Weather conditions and the skill of the pilots make it challenging, and there are times when two planes collide and crash. “You have to be really diligent,” he says.

Preparation began the day before a mission with a meeting of the four-man crew: pilot, co-pilot, navigator and boom operator. They had to know where they were going and how much fuel they needed. Belmonte looked at the mission requirements and used a “whiz wheel” — a small manual computer like a circular slide rule — to calculate course, distance, timing and other details. He drew a chart indicating the course they were to fly and briefed the entire crew. The next morning, they grabbed their life-support equipment, caught a crew bus to their plane, got the weather briefing for the entire route of the flight and performed their pre-flight check. All of this took about two hours. If the weather cooperated, they received clearance and took off for the refueling rendezvous. “I was the one responsible for overseeing timing,” Belmonte says. “Your main concern was to get the fuel to the aircraft so that aircraft could either recover safely or continue on their mission, drop bombs or whatever they’re going to do. There are airplanes all over the place and not a lot of talking.”

During his 20-year military career, Belmonte served as navigator, senior navigator and master navigator on the KC-135. He was also a staff officer and instructor. He taught newly commissioned lieutenants to become KC-135 navigators and served as a combat navigator flight instructor. “I was a highly experienced instructor, and I went to school to learn how to train other highly experienced navigators to become instructors,” Belmonte says. “It’s like another rung in the experience ladder.”

Belmonte deployed overseas many times on temporary duty lasting four weeks, six weeks or sometimes longer. Tanker task forces are based in various places around the world to handle the refueling of whatever military aircraft needs it. In addition to Alaska, Hawaii and Guam, these assignments took him to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He spent time in England, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, the Azores and Okinawa. “Those were the days (in the ’80s and ’90s) when Europe was very highly occupied by the United States,” Belmonte says. “It was kind of fun to go with your crew to Europe, but I didn’t like to leave my family for six weeks.”

On Nov. 1, 1990, Belmonte deployed to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield, flying more than 40 missions through Jan. 15, 1991. He also flew 39 combat support missions in Operation Desert Storm from Jan. 17 through the cease-fire on Feb. 28. He was based at King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the 1703rd Air Refueling Wing. Desert Shield involved regular stretches of flying and time off. Desert Storm was more intense, with no typical schedule. “You’d have your mission planning, pre-flight take off, do your mission, land, post-flight, try to get maybe a bite to eat, some coffee, try to get some sleep and start over again,” Belmonte says. “You slept when you could, and you ate when you could.”

Under normal circumstances, there is constant communication during the refueling process, with air traffic controllers and with the aircraft receiving the fuel both during refueling and after the planes separate. In a combat situation, there is no talking. “We know where we are supposed to go, and after we took off from the tower, we didn’t talk to anybody,” Belmonte says.

He recalls his first combat support mission flown. It was on Jan. 17, 1991, and his tanker was rendezvousing to refuel two F-4 Gs, which had dropped ordnance on an anti-aircraft site. “I watched them come off the target, off our wing. Nobody said anything. They came up, got their gas, left and we went back. Nobody said a word,” Belmonte says. “It went very smoothly. In the background of all that, you see everything burning, smoke and flames. It was going well — for us at least.”

The King Khalid air base was under SCUD [missile] attack almost nightly from the start of the war, and at times Belmonte took off and landed amid missile fire. “We’d watch our Patriot batteries engage, launch and blast the SCUDs out of the sky,” he says. “I saw it a couple of times while I was flying in, which was a very dicey thing.” Once, just as Belmonte’s tanker was ready to take off, they got word that SCUDs were inbound. The man in the aircraft control tower said, “You’re pretty much cleared to do as you want, but I’m leaving!” The tower controller sought shelter, and Belmonte’s plane took off.

Belmonte kept a journal of his Desert Storm combat support missions, in which he named the types of planes refueled, recorded details of the rendezvous and tallied the total hours it took. “We just flew and flew and flew with no accidents,” he says, “thanking the Lord for us and nobody else getting hurt and things like that.”

An entry from Mission 24, Feb. 8, 1991, involving 12 A-10s and an EC-130, reads: “We were refueling the A-10s at low altitude and they kept coming at us. We were having a hard time squeezing in the EC-130, who was waiting patiently orbiting over Kuwait. I suspect the A-10s were getting gas and then going to kill [Iraqi] tanks. I don’t recall how many different flights came up. The EC-130 finally was able to come and get his gas. So, at least 13 satisfied customers, not including the ground troops who eventually benefitted from the diminished tank count.”

The A-10 provided close air support for friendly ground troops, attacked armored vehicles and tanks, and provided quick-action support against enemy ground forces. The EC-130 was an electronics warfare platform supporting ground troops.

Belmonte retired from the Air Force in 2003 as a major and was awarded the Air Medal for the combat support missions he flew. He has worked for the Department of Defense as a flight manager distributing flight packages to aircrew around the world and is now employed with a federal government agency that supplies aeronautical information to pilots.

He and his wife, Pamela Mai, have six children. Belmonte has a master’s degree in history and has taught as a college adjunct instructor in addition to his full-time job. He has researched and written several military history books, mostly about Italian Americans in World War I.

Reflecting on his career, Belmonte says, “Overall, it was very enjoyable for me. It was just very interesting and satisfying in unusual ways.” About being an instructor, he says, “I had to know a little bit more than the student so I had to stay a step ahead and learn. Each time, I learned more about the airplane and about the mission, about navigating.” Regarding his time flying combat support missions during Desert Storm, Belmonte says, “It’s pleasurable to help our forces do what they have to do safely, so that was a satisfying thing.”

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Linda Grisolia

Army Specialist 4th Class Michael Pesola

A communications specialist for the Army, Michael Pesola served in Germany during the Vietnam War as part of the team that kept the Soviet Union at bay.

The older of two sons, Michael Pesola was born in Chicago to Frank and Rose (Mancini) Pesola. His maternal grandparents emigrated from Calabria and his paternal grandparents from Bari. Pesola lived in the Taylor Street “Little Italy” enclave, close to his grandparents and extended family, who were right across the alley in a three-flat. He has vivid memories of the wonderful taste of his grandmother’s ravioli and of pressing grapes for his grandfather’s wine. “It was a unique neighborhood,” Pesola says. “People in the summer, sitting on their porches; fire hydrants shooting water out, playing in the cold water. All you would hear was chatter, chatter from all the Italian people.”

The family moved to Berwyn when Pesola was 10 years old. He graduated from Komensky Grade School and worked part time at Jewel Foods while attending Morton East High School. Upon graduating in 1965, Pesola worked full time while attending college classes.

He was drafted into the United States Army in 1967, two months after becoming engaged. The Vietnam War was all over the news. “They’re showing bad stuff, body bags. It was horrible. You’re watching in your living room,” Pesola says. “I was kind of scared.”

A good friend was drafted at the same time, and they attended basic training together in Missouri. “That was kind of nice,” Pesola says. “I had somebody to go with.” On the bus to Fort Leonard Wood, the soldiers were told, “You’re in a different world now. You’re in our world.”

Pesola completed the eight-week program and transferred to Fort Huachuca in Arizona. He was assigned to Communications and trained to be a radio operator. He heard it was not a good thing to be a radio operator in Vietnam because the radio had a long antenna and was carried on your back, making you a target. “That made you even more scared, you know,” Pesola says.

He learned Morse code during a 10-week course. After he graduated, he received orders to transfer to New Jersey. At Fort Dix, he got paperwork to fly to Germany, board a train to Frankfurt and call Battery Headquarters from the station. He traveled alone, with no other soldiers. “Then, the fun started because a lot of the Germans did not speak English, and I didn’t speak German,” Pesola says. “When I got to the train station, I’m looking around, and I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I was petrified.”

An American Army wife noticed Pesola having trouble with the phone and helped him convert his money to German currency and make the call. He was taken to Karlsruhe Base in Pforzheim. Pesola was assigned to Battery A, First Battalion, 67th Artillery USA Europe, and was stationed in an old Army barracks in the Black Forest. “There was nothing to walk to; you’re in the woods,” Pesola says. “That was really desolate and isolated.”

One hundred and fifty soldiers lived and worked at various stations within the barracks. Pesola reported daily to the Communications room, which was filled with radios, phones and switchboards. “The funny part about this whole story, when I got there, they said there is no Morse code here. You just pick up the phone and you talk,” he chuckles. “I go ‘What? After all that training?’”

Nike missiles were kept in underground silos a few miles from the barracks. “Communism was big, so that was really the reason I was there — to guard (Europe),” Pesola says. “Keeping an eye on the Russians was our main thing, not Vietnam.” The missile site was protected by double fences, with armed guards manning the guard towers 24/7. If a problem arose at any time of day or night, the guards called Communications. “We had the radios and they had a bunch of missiles, and our job was to make sure the communication was always working,” Pesola says.

He constantly cleaned, repaired, calibrated and tested the equipment. “So if we needed it, it was there,” he says. Communication problems occurred a few times, requiring Pesola to go to the missile site. “We had to track down the wire that wasn’t getting any power to the phone, splice that and put in new wiring,” he says.

After seven months in the Black Forest, Pesola transferred to Darmstadt, Germany. He was stationed at Kelley Barracks, close to town. Once again, he was within a few miles of a missile site, and his principal responsibility was keeping the lines of communication open to the guards protecting the site.

One memorable incident occurred at around 2 in the morning. Tower guards spotted someone lurking and sirens blared, so Pesola and the other soldiers rushed over, rifles drawn. They circled the area, and the interloper was caught without incident. Adrenalin pumping, Pesola did not feel fear at the time. “It seemed like we knew there was only one (guy) involved,” he says.

Occasionally, the soldiers went into town and were told to avoid certain areas. “Because of WWII, the older Germans were sometimes mean to us,” Pesola says. “I could remember walking by some old guys, and they spit at us.”

On Christmas Day 1968, Pesola and a few buddies went into town. They spotted a gasthaus, a combination restaurant and tavern, walked in and sat at the long bar. They were the only customers, the owner didn’t speak English and the soldiers didn’t speak German. Pesola noticed children peeking from a doorway, and the owner gestured for the soldiers to follow him to the back where he lived. There, they spent Christmas Day watching a circus on TV with the family. “That was like, ‘You’re kidding me?’” Pesola says. While he wasn’t able to spend Christmas on Taylor Street eating ravioli with his family, he will never forget the kindness of that German family. “They saw that we were alone,” he says.

Pesola returned to Fort Dix and was discharged on April 22, 1969, as Specialist 4th Class. He returned home to Berwyn and his job at Jewel Foods and married his childhood sweetheart, Barbara Reihel, in June.

Pesola owned and operated Michael’s Café and Deli in Oak Brook for 15 years. Since selling the business, he has worked part time in food services at a local high school. A recent widow, he lives close to his three children and six grandchildren, participating in their activities as much as possible.

Thinking back on his time in the military, Pesola says that being away from home was difficult at first, and training was rigorous. “They were pretty tough on you. They get in your face and so forth, and it was all for a reason — to keep you alive,” he says. He enjoyed his time in Germany and always remembers that Christmas Day with the German family. “We never said a word to each other,” he says. “We just sat and watched.”

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Linda Grisolia

National Guard Airman Joseph Matty

The 182nd Support Group celebrates Family Day before deployment to Kuwait.

The oldest of two sons, Joseph Matty was born in Chicago to Ray Matty Sr. and Ann Marie Clark Matty. His paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Palermo, Sicily, and his maternal great-grandparents came from the regions of Calabria and Naples.

Matty grew up in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. His grandparents lived about four blocks away; aunts, uncles and cousins all lived within a mile and a half of each other; and they all enjoyed close relationships. “Family and traditions were very important,” Matty says. “It’s that tribal mentality, that family mentality that everybody pitches in and helps one another.”

He remembers making ravioli with his maternal great-grandmother, little nonni. “Being in the kitchen with little nonni, my grandmother and my mom is still very ingrained in my memory,” he says. Matty fondly recalls his paternal great-grandmother. “I remember her smoking over the pot of sauce and always thinking that there might be a little ash in there,” he chuckles.

Matty graduated from Queen of the Universe Grade School and Brother Rice High School and planned on becoming the first in his family to attend college. A highly decorated athlete, he received scholarship opportunities but realized the only way he could attend college without adding a lot of debt was with the help of Uncle Sam.

After making the decision to join a branch of the armed services, Matty enlisted in the Air National Guard of the United States Air Force in December 1996. He graduated from Brother Rice in May 1997 and headed to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for basic training that June.

Matty was enrolled in Food Services and Dietetics and, after scoring extremely high on his tests, completed technical school in Alabama before advancing to medical training while stationed in Alabama and Mississippi. “I knew when I got out of college I wanted to get into some aspect of medicine or health care,” he says.

Matty explains that his mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he was in fourth grade, and he spent a lot of time in the presence of medical professionals at Loyola Hospital. His mother’s illness greatly influenced his life. “It just always was innate with me, given the care and compassion those physicians and nurses gave my mother and father,” Matty says. “So that was something that, growing up, I viewed as an opportunity to have as a career, not just a job.”

After completing advanced training, Matty attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in health administration. He went on to earn a master’s in university finance.

While attending college classes, Matty trained with the Air National Guard for two weekends a month at the Peoria Air National Guard Base. He often stayed an entire week, Friday to Friday, allowing him to take part in additional medical training and work at the base.

In 2000, Matty was called up to active duty and deployed to the Aviano air base in Italy as a senior airman. “We were helping out with training and preparation, specifically for dietetic and mortuary,” Matty says. “At the time, dietetic and mortuary were charged with preparing the body if somebody had died, getting them ready to be sent over to Dover Air Force Base.” Matty trained other airmen in addition to Army personnel stationed at the base.

After a few weeks in Italy, Matty returned to the States and prepared for deployment to Kuwait, specifically for medical evacuation. Staff Sergeant Matty was stationed at Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait during the summer of 2001. Attached to the 182nd Support Group, he trained airmen for mission readiness. He was also instrumental in implementing new preventive and safety measures for the group.

The 182nd provided support to the American and British pilots stationed on the base. Any time the pilots were in the air for training maneuvers or reconnaissance missions over Kuwait, C130 cargo planes were on the tarmac ready to go. “Really, we just had to make sure when the pilots were doing their missions that, God forbid anything happened, we would be able to load the C130 and go evacuate anybody who needed evacuation from a medical perspective,” Matty says.

When on liberty, he had the opportunity to visit the urban centers in Kuwait, see the Gulf, and experience the culture and what daily life would be like as a Kuwaiti. Matty and his fellow airmen tried to blend in. He chuckles as he says, “I came from the South Side of Chicago. I’m not going to blend in.” The locals often took their pictures. “They loved us,” he says. “We were informed many times that they were just in awe of Americans. That was a very warm reception we received in 2001.” Matty returned to the States in August 2001, just before the world-changing events of 9/11.

Matty was discharged from the Air National Guard in 2002 as a staff sergeant. He was offered the opportunity to become an officer in the Air Force but declined because he was focused on pursuing the goal of becoming a professional in the American health care system.

The Air National Guard gave Matty the chance to study and do medical research while taking courses in the Air Force and in college. Throughout it all, his mother’s illness was always on his mind. “All the things I would look into, I always had the thought that, ‘I’m not a neurologist, but I can still help somebody,’” he says. Today, Matty is president of a health care foundation in Chicago. “Over the last five years, I’ve been doing that and doing consulting and advocacy work for nonprofits in health care,” he says. Matty works with elected officials to inform them about health care options for their constituents and with health care foundations to help them enhance services for people who need palliative and hospice care as well as children who need pediatric care. “It’s always been that vein of service and helping others,” Matty says.

Matty is married to Kate Braser Matty, and they have four children. His parents live four blocks away, just like his grandparents did when he was growing up. Family and traditions are still very important to him.

“I think that the time in the Air Force along with my schooling at Brother Rice provided the framework for really building a career and making sure that you always remember it’s not always about you,” Matty says. “We have a great country, and we have so much to be thankful for. My training helped me see the world in a different light and taught me that we need to make sure we stay humble and grateful for what we have as Americans.”

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Linda Grisolia

Army Technical Sergeant Dan Teoro

A combat engineer during the Korean War, Dan Teoro helped bring much-needed holiday cheer after the armistice by taking part in the construction of a Nativity scene near the Demilitarized Zone.

Editor’s Note: Dan passed away in February 2018. This article was published in the December 2017 issue of Fra Noi and is being republished here in his memory.

Dan Teoro was born in Chicago, grew up on South Ashland Avenue, joined the Boy Scouts, and attended Harper High. Employed as an auto mechanic, he was married for only two months when he was drafted into the Army in October 1952. He completed his training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., and set out to Ft. Lewis, Wash., where he boarded a troop ship headed for Yokohama Bay, Japan.

He was processed at Camp Drake in preparation for combat and the next evening after dinner, all the soldiers were lined up. Names were called off, with Teoro and another recent recruit being the last two called. The sergeant said, “Get your gear and return at 8 a.m., you’re going to Korea.”

Surprised, Teoro asked the sergeant, “Sir, I just got here yesterday, are you sure it’s me? Everybody that I was with is still here.” The sergeant asked, “Is your name Dan Teoro?” “Yes,” Teoro replied. The sergeant said, “You’re going to the Second Infantry Division to Korea, that’s all I know.”

The soldiers boarded a train to Yokohama Bay where they lined up in a warehouse. “I was number 501 and my buddy was 502,” Teoro recalls. “I’ll never forget that.” The soldiers marched out to the waiting ship. By that time, it was 2 a.m.

Teoro was on the gangplank when a naval officer put his hands out and said, “You two soldiers step back. The ship is completely filled.” They were told to go back to the warehouse, find the train and return to Camp Drake.

The gangplank was pulled up and a band played while Teoro and his buddy watched the ship leave. Suddenly, it became very quiet and dark, with just the two soldiers standing there. They disagreed on the route back, but Teoro, with his Boy Scout training, led the way, pointing and saying, “There’s the building we want. Follow me.”

They found the warehouse with their numbers, 501 and 502, still marked on the floor. They passed through the opposite doors, where the train waited.

Teoro and his buddy were standbys, and helped process the new arrivals until a week later, when they boarded a ship to Pusan, Korea. A train took him north, stopping along the way to drop off troops. A M*A*S*H* unit was set up at one stop and the doctors needed help. Helicopters were bringing the casualties in and wounded and injured soldiers were lying all around on stretchers.

This was the first time Teoro witnessed the ravages of war. The day was cloudy and dreary as he picked up the stretchers and helped load them into a train car with a large Red Cross on the top. “There were guys bleeding and moaning,” he says. “It was something to see.”

Teoro was a combat engineer with the Second Infantry Division in the Chorwon-Kunmwha sector. Combat engineers were responsible for getting American troops and materials wherever they were needed while thwarting enemy movement whenever possible.

Sgt. Teoro and his company built and maintained roads through rice paddies and mountains. They also built and repaired bridges and installed barbed wire and field fortifications. The engineers persevered through extreme weather conditions, frozen ground and enemy mortar, artillery and sniper fire.

Under fire, the engineers dropped their tools, grabbed their rifles and helped push the enemy back. There were many close calls during artillery attacks because, as Teoro says, “You never knew where it would fall. It was scary.”

An artillery round exploded near Teoro and he recalls seeing a burst of color as he dropped to the ground for cover. When the attack stopped, Teoro stood up, his face black with smoke, shaken but not hurt. Teoro says, “The good Lord protected me wherever I was.”

The first week he was in Korea, Teoro had orders to build a helicopter pad and his men drove their equipment out and started working. An officer spotted them, drove out with a patrol, and yelled, “What are you doing here? Get your stuff and get out of here! We lost this territory yesterday!”

By this time, the enemy spotted them and started firing. “We got out of there real quick,” Teoro says.

Teoro helped build two roads through the mountains. So much dynamite was used to blast through the mountain that one road was called “Demolition Drive.” This road brought supplies to the main battle position.

The second road, “Suicide Drive,” had many curves and was close to the edge of the mountain. Drivers had to be careful not to drive off the edge. This road brought ammo and supplies to the front line while the wounded were brought down on it. “Everyday, the engineers would dynamite and bulldoze to widen the road so tanks, artillery guns and large trucks could use it,” he says.

The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, and it became official the next day, which happened to be Teoro’s birthday. To celebrate both occasions, the company cook surprised him with a birthday cake. “I’ll never forget that moment,” Teoro says.

Afterward, Teoro stayed on in the Chorwon-Kunmwha sector and took part in construction of the Demilitarized Zone. During Operation Pull Back, everything possible was salvaged from the area. Then the engineers began “winterizing” the area, building Quonset huts and laying floors.

The soldiers enjoyed a delicious turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and, lingering over coffee, reminisced about Christmas back home. The idea was floated to build a Nativity scene in front of the company camp and the commanding officers said, “That would be a great idea!”

The next day, the excited soldiers gathered all the necessary materials and construction began. Everyone helped, working together and using their talents. When the Nativity was completed, soldiers took pictures to send home.

On Christmas Eve, Teoro’s company gathered in front of the Nativity scene and sang “Silent Night.”

“I’ll never forget … brave men with tears in their eyes.” Teoro recalls. “I found out later that this was the only Nativity scene built in Korea. Every Christmas Eve, I think back to my Christmas in Korea 1953.”

Teoro left Korea in March 1954 and was stationed in Ft. Benning, Ga., until he was discharged in October 1954. He returned home to Chicago, attended barber college on the GI Bill, and still has his shop on the South Side of Chicago.

Widowed with three children, Teoro has been heavily involved as a leader of the Boy Scouts for more than 50 years. He returned to Korea twice at the invitation of the Korea-based SMEE Church, once in June 2012 and again in 2013, when he was presented with another birthday cake on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the truce.

Reflecting on his time as a combat engineer during the Korean Conflict, Teoro says, “I was proud to serve our country and I thank God for bringing me back.”

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Sam Tinaglia

Princess Mafalda of Savoy

Known for her piety and charity, Princess Mafalda of Savoy spoke out against Hitler with predictably tragic results.

I have to admit I have always been fascinated by royalty. My father’s middle name was Umberto, in honor of Umberto I, the King of Italy who was assassinated in 1900. Many people know the story of the Russian czar and his family who were killed, so danger in troubled times is not unknown to royals. But then I ran across the amazing story of an Italian princess named Mafalda of Savoy. Mafalda is the Italianized version of Matilda, which appropriately, as you’ll soon see, means “strong in battle.”

Our storybook tale with a tragic twist begins with Mafalda’s birth in 1902. She was one of five children born to Vittorio Emmanuele, King of Italy, and his consort, Elena of Montenegro. Her younger brother became King Umberto II of Italy, and her sisters were married to counts, princes and even the czar of Bulgaria. Her royal family lived in a villa outside of Rome, and Mafalda received an education befitting an aristocrat, speaking five languages and playing numerous musical instruments. She visited World War I military hospitals with her mother to raise the morale of wounded soldiers and became known for her piety and charity.

In 1925, Mafalda met Prince Philipp von Hesse at a Roman garden party and was taken by his charm. He was an architect, a designer, and a wounded and decorated veteran of World War I. He was also the nephew of the last Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II, and great-grandson of Queen Victoria. The engagement of the two was a cause célèbre as the marriage would be the first between royals of former World War I enemies. The union was complicated by their religions, Catholic vs. Protestant, but love won out. The couple married at the family Castle of Racconigi in the province of Cuneo in the Piemonte region of northern Italy. While a “medieval ceremony” was being held at the castle, the couple slipped away to visit a dinner they hosted for villagers in the town. Holding the nuptials at the remote castle points to Mafalda’s simplicity and kind-heartedness and was quite a contrast to the more elaborate setting of her sister Yolanda’s wedding, at the Quirinal Palazzo on the highest hill in Rome. The newlyweds settled near Rome in the Villa Polissena, where they had four children: Moritz (1926), Heinrich (1927), Otto (1937) and Elisabeth (1940).

The 1930s were a politically complex time for all people, particularly royals, with fascist dictators first taking over Italy and then Germany. Philipp and his younger brother Christoph unwisely joined the Nazi party, hoping that Hitler might one day allow the German monarchy to return to power or position, as in Italy. Philipp dined with Nazi leader Hermann Goering, who promised to protect the prince’s family and wealth. Other nobles sided with fascist governments in opposition to the communists, who wanted them dead and their land confiscated. Philipp moved up the Nazi hierarchy and became a governor of Hesse-Nassau, as well as an art agent for Hitler in Italy.

Because he was the son-in-law of the King of Italy and could act as a useful channel of communications between Mussolini and Hitler, Philipp was appointed to Hitler’s personal staff in 1939. At the time, some Italian royals and military leaders, including Italo Balbo, were decidedly against Mussolini’s pact with Hitler. According to some authors, when Philipp realized the dark realities of Nazism, he used his position and money to provide passports for Jews to help them escape to Holland. Publicly, however, he continued with his duties and occasionally made private missions to Italy for Hitler. Philipp eventually tried to resign, but he was prevented from doing so and “kept” at the Fuhrer’s headquarters. The arrest of Mussolini by Mafalda’s father in July 1943 made life even more precarious for the couple and their children. Leaders in Germany began to question the loyalty of Philipp and Mafalda, as her brother, the crown prince, was known to be working for peace and thus connected them to the demise of Mussolini.

According to one website: “Mafalda, for her part, too frank and open-hearted for her own good, never hid her antipathy for Hitler.” The feeling was mutual. Hitler deeply mistrusted the princess, suspecting her of working against the war effort. He called her “the blackest carrion in the Italian Royal House.” His lackey and minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, was even more direct and vulgar. He said Mafalda was “the biggest whore” of the Italian royals, reflecting Mafalda’s stature as an outspoken opponent of the Nazi regime.

Mafalda’s sister, Princess Giovanna, was married to Boris III, czar of Bulgaria. Boris was also resistant to Hitler’s demands for more support of Germany’s war and anti-Jewish efforts. In August of 1943, Czar Boris was summoned to the Fuhrer’s headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia. After a “heated meeting” with Hitler, Boris refused to have Bulgarian Jews deported to concentration camps or to even declare war on the Soviet Union. The czar returned home to Bulgaria where he died under the suspicion of having been poisoned during his visit to Hitler’s headquarters. Goebbels claimed that Mafalda was involved in the poisoning as she was visiting her sister when Boris died. Mafalda was still in Bulgaria when her father declared an armistice with the Allies on Sept. 8, 1943. This action resulted in her husband being formally arrested by the SS and sent to a concentration camp the next day.

Mafalda headed to Rome to be with her children, who found shelter at the Vatican after her father, the king, fled the German occupying forces in the wake of his alliance with the Allies. On Sept. 23, 1943, she was tricked into going to the German Embassy, ostensibly to speak with her captive husband. Upon arriving, she was arrested and taken to Berlin, where she was interrogated about her knowledge of the Italian alliance with the Allies. Fortunately, her children were able to escape, along with a governess, back to their grandmother in Germany.

Mafalda was far less fortunate. She became a prisoner under the name Frau Weber in the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp. Testimonies by fellow Italian inmates, who quickly recognized the princess, revealed that she shared her food with her countrymen because she had access to better provisions as a political prisoner. One inmate, Luigi Versasso, spoke of the encouragement the princess gave. “The only beams of light in Buchenwald were the eyes of Mafalda,” he said. After almost a year in the camp, Mafalda was horribly injured during an errant Allied air bombing. To the Italians who surrounded her stretcher as she was taken to the camp infirmary, she said, “As I die, remember me not as a princess but as your sister.” On the night of Aug. 26/27, 1944, the princess succumbed to her wounds and was buried, according to one source, in grave No. 262 as “an unknown woman.” From being born in a palazzo as a princess to her burial in an unmarked grave, the story of Mafalda is haunting and one that should not be forgotten.

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Sam Tinaglia

Medal of Honor recipient Luigi Palma di Cesnola

The first Italian American to earn the Medal of Honor, Luigi Palma di Cesnola was instrumental in establishing the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Cavalliere Emmanuele Pietro Paolo Maria Luigi Palma di Cesnola would never be mistaken for the “Modern Major General,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s satirical take on the overly educated officers of 19th-century England. While Cesnola didn’t know everything “vegetable, animal and mineral,” he knew enough about the martial, pedagogical and archeological to more than get by.

Cesnola led an amazing life, fighting wars on three continents, marrying an American blue blood and conducting groundbreaking archaeological digs in Cyprus. Born near Torino into a military family of lesser nobility in the Kingdom of Piedmont in 1832, he was the second son of a count and countess. Given the laws of primogeniture, which dictate the first son inherits the title, he had to make his own way in the world. After being kicked out of a Jesuit elementary school, he went to military school. As rebellion swept through Europe in 1848, young Luigi joined the fight to free Northern Italy from the shackles of Austro-Hungarian rule. (See page 39.) He fought with distinction, receiving the silver medal for bravery and was promoted to under-lieutenant at the age of 16.

After the war and his commissioning as an officer, Cesnola attended Piedmontese military academies, including the cavalry school at Pinerolo, and for several years, enjoyed the life of a young, handsome cavalry officer. Strangely, he resigned his commission and became an aide to several Italians fighting alongside the British in the Crimean War. Among those Italians was Sicilian General Enrico Fardella, who was serving with the British army in Crimea after being exiled by the Neapolitan Bourbons for his role in the Sicilian Revolt of 1848. Some writers surmise that, given Sardinia’s later involvement in the Crimean War, Cesnola may have been placed there as a prelude to Piedmont sending troops to aid the British and French and their Turkish allies in the conflict with Russia. Other writers with a more romantic turn of mind say Cesnola stopped serving the House of Savoy due to a love affair. Cesnola may have been present at the battle of Balaclava and was surely at the siege of Sevastpol. His experience with the Turks would serve him well much later in his life.

After peace was declared in Crimea, Cesnola traveled to New York City around 1858 with a flute and not much more. He tried to make a living by teaching French and Italian and doing translations, but he barely scraped by, even after anglicizing his name to Louis. In April 1860, however, he had the great fortune to take in a new pupil by the name of Mary Jennings Reid, who was a member of the American aristocracy. One of her grandfathers was at the Battle of Lexington in 1775, and her father, Capt. Samuel Reid, was a hero of the War of 1812. (It was Reid who came up with the concept of limiting the American flag to 13 stripes, then adding stars for each new state.) In 1860, a man named Lincoln was nominated at the Republican convention in Chicago. By the time Cesnola and Reid tied the knot in June of 1861, storm clouds were gathering. The match was made to the chagrin of Mary’s friends and family, who believed she was marrying beneath her.

As war fever was everywhere and money was an issue, Mary came up with the idea of using Luigi’s vast military knowledge and experience and starting a school to train aspiring officers. With Cesnola’s pedigree and noble mien, the school quickly flourished and ended up training 700 officers for the Union war effort. Clearly, a man of his skills, talents, and political leanings toward freedom and human rights was destined to join the ranks of Lincoln’s army.

Cesnola was soon appointed colonel of the 4th New York Volunteer Cavalry and started recruiting at his and Mary’s expense. In the eyes of the young men he brought into the fold, he was a born soldier who would train and drill them even though many had yet to ride a horse!

In simplest terms, the Civil War was a battle of city boys versus country boys who grew up on horseback and were being led by beau sabres such as Jeb Stuart and Wade Hampton. Thus, in the early part of the war, the Union troops were outmatched and repeatedly defeated. Cesnola brought an aggressive and attacking approach to fighting. He also brought conflict upon himself with a slightly arrogant manner that brooked no slight to his honor. He was nevertheless doing well under Brig. General A. Duffié, himself a European emigre who had also seen service in the Crimea with the French cavalry.

Soon, Cesnola’s abilities were noticed. He was given command over five regiments (5,000 troops) under General Carl Schurz and was involved in numerous clashes in Virginia with units under the command of Lee’s brilliant cavalry commander Jeb Stuart. Through live action and constant drilling, Cesnola’s troops were becoming increasingly professional, no longer boys riding plow horses. Unfortunately, his career was sidelined for a few weeks after he was falsely accused, perhaps because of jealousy, in a matter of five pistols that were unaccounted for amid vast looting and war profiteering. The pistols were found.

The truth having won out, Cesnola was back as colonel of the 4th NY but was passed over for brigade commands in favor of his American-born counterparts, even though he had more experience and seniority in rank. As such, he was back in the saddle when his division fought the first engagement in which the Union cavalry claimed victory, sabre to sabre, against their albeit outnumbered Southern opponents at Kelly’s Ford in March 1863. Though a small action by Civil War standards, with only 3,000 men involved, it was important in that Jeb Stuart was present; the rebels were commanded by the well-regarded Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee; and, for the first time, a Virginia cavalry unit retreated in the face of a charge. A close reading of the battlefield maps produced by the American Battlefield Trust suggests it was Cesnola’s own 4th that made that successful charge.

Cesnola’s unit was then involved with General Stoneman’s first major Union cavalry raid. Taking place over four days behind enemy lines, it was designed to influence Lee’s movements before Chancellorsville. Given his recent success, Cesnola was placed in command of a brigade for what would be the largest predominantly cavalry battle of the Civil War, involving more than 20,000 men. It took place at Brandy Station, Virginia, in June 1863. The battle was a confused affair fought over nine square miles of rivers, hills, farmhouses and train tracks. Again, Cesnola was in the thick of things, even though his division was stationed at a corner of the battlefield. His brigade charged two Confederate cavalry regiments of about 600 men at Hansbrough’s Ridge, forcing them to fall back. Always leading from the front, he was said to have crossed sabers with several rebel officers in this engagement.

Cesnola’s next engagement would be his finest hour. The Battle of Aldie, about 40 miles west of Washington, D.C., was described as a “severe, savage fight between 4,000 men in 94-degree weather” in an American Battlefield Trust video. Aldie was important as a junction of two major turnpikes. The Confederate cavalry was moving north as a screen for Lee’s army, which was ultimately heading to Gettysburg. Lincoln was quite concerned as to the whereabouts of Lee’s troops and ordered his cavalry to learn what they could at all costs.

Unfortunately for Cesnola, Duffié had been demoted and replaced by divisional commander General Gregg. This reshuffling of officers resulted in a junior officer, some say a relative of Gregg’s, taking command of a brigade. Understandably angered by this perceived slight, Cesnola argued with General Gregg and, as a result, was placed under house arrest, with his sword and pistol taken away from him. His beloved 4th went into battle without him and was pushed back. Seeing his unit routed, he jumped on a horse and, with his unit’s acclamation, led them in a second charge that was successful.

Another general, witnessing this amazing feat, went over Gregg’s head and had Cesnola released from arrest just as another charge was called for. Seeing Cesnola had no weapon, the general offered him his own sword and said “bring it back with some rebel blood.” By a “gallant charge, [Cesnola] turned apparent defeat into a glorious victory for our arms,” according to a New York Times article. Unfortunately, the third charge (some say fifth) resulted in Cesnola not returning with his men. The colonel ended up “laying under his dead horse, a sabre cut three inches long on the crown of his head, a large cut in the palm of his hand and a gunshot wound in the upper part of his left arm,” Elizabeth McFadden wrote in “The Giitter and the Gold.” Cesnola was captured and sent to the Libby Prisoner of War Camp. In 1897, for his bravery during that battle, Cesnola received our nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, becoming the first Italian American to do so.

Libby Prison in Richmond was the second-most infamous prison in the Confederacy after Andersonville. It housed roughly 1,000 Union officers in cramped and unhealthy conditions. Fortunately, a fellow officer helped nurse Cesnola back to health. Numerous letters to his “dearest Mary” from her “Luigi” still exist. Besides requests for blankets and food, he asks for articles of women’s clothing, humorously telling her not to be jealous as he had no sweetheart. The items were clearly to be used as bribes for the mail censors to let her letters come through to him. Another amusing request was for flute sheet music from Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” to entertain the men. Cesnola was held captive from June 1863 to March 1864. His letters imply that other officers with more political connections were freed more rapidly.

After seeing his beloved Mary and his first-born daughter in New York, Cesnola was back in the fight in Virginia. His unit was part of General Sheridan’s cavalry, which was working with General Grant to defeat Lee. The 4th New York was in violent battles such as Cold Harbor and Trevilian Station, where Cesnola’s brigade was involved in seven assaults and repulsed with heavy losses. (There was another dashing young commander in the Union cavalry division at that time by the name of Custer). In private letters, Cesnola was critical of senior officers for the pointless loss of lives at Trevilian, the steady looting and burning of the homes of Southerners, and the mistreatment of women, which the cavaliere found horrible and attempted to prevent. His unit’s service was over in September 1864 after having fought in 47 battles of the great American struggle.

Following the war, Luigi and Mary were basically penniless. Fortunately, through friends in New York, Cesnola was able to secure the consulship of Cyprus. He became an American citizen in August 1865 and, somewhat controversially, began calling himself “general” in Cyprus to impress the Turkish authorities who controlled the island. There is much confusion over who was breveted a general during the Civil War, but this author believes Cesnola was only officially entitled to the rank of colonel. For the most part, he stopped referring to himself as count, which he occasionally did before becoming a U.S. citizen, though as a second son, he was entitled only to cavaliere.

The late 1800s were an era of amazing archaeological finds, such as the discovery that the city of Troy was an actual place, not just a story by Homer. It was in this atmosphere that Cesnola threw himself into scouring Cyprus for artifacts. Through several years of excavations and purchases, he was able to amass a significant collection. One of Cesnola’s goals was to prove that Cyprus was the link between Egypt and Greece in antiquity. Such were the significance of his finds that both the Russian and French governments considered purchasing them for their museums. Fortunately for him, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York wanted to flex its muscles versus its European counterparts. As the museum states on its website, “When the Metropolitan Museum opened at its current site in Central Park in 1880, the [Cesnola] collection was the focus of attention, heralded as a great asset to the city of New York, which was then aspiring to become a major cultural as well as business center. The richness and fame of the collection also did much to establish the Museum’s reputation as a major repository of classical antiquities and put it on a par with the foremost museums in Europe.” To substantiate his efforts, Cesnola published a tome on his work in Cyprus and the artifacts he uncovered. The archaeological field was nascent at this point, and there are criticisms that his excavations and those of other European explorers removed the cultural heritage of countries. Several men who clearly resented Cesnola’s success attempted to paint him and some of his findings as frauds but failed in the courts of both law and public opinion.

As part of his negotiations with the museum, Cesnola was named director, and in so doing, secured a place for himself and his wife in New York society. Mary became involved in “benevolent activities and helped to found an Italian Orphanage and the Christoforo Colombo Hospital in New York,” McFadden wrote. Luigi served tirelessly as the first director of the museum and was instrumental in the construction of its beautiful building along Central Park. “The Cesnola Collection remains a wonderful storehouse of ancient art and artifacts, and it is by far the most important and comprehensive collection of Cypriot material in the Western Hemisphere,” the museum website states. He worked at the museum until his death in 1904 and received praise for his dedication from the likes of J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts. As someone with a significant amount of Italian blood, I enjoyed this line of the memorial resolution honoring Cesnola: “Somewhat restive in opposition and somewhat impetuous in speech and action but at all times devoted to his duty.”

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Peter Belmonte

Army Corporal Anthony Cardamone

Anthony Cardamone’s application for a victory medal

One of hundreds of thousands of Italian Americans who fought with valor during World War I, Anthony Cardamone left behind a precious legacy in the form of an account from the front.

World War I was the first American war in which large numbers of Italian immigrants served in the armed forces. Although they were certainly present in U.S. military units in previous conflicts, the timing of their heaviest immigration — the 1890s, 1900s and 1910s — ensured there would be an ample supply of young men from Italy to fill places in the burgeoning United States Army in 1917. Although it’s impossible to determine how many men and women of Italian origin served in the U.S. military during World War I, estimates of up to 300,000 are probably not a gross exaggeration. For many Italian immigrants living in America when the war broke out, serving in the military offered a fast-track to citizenship for both them and their families. It’s truly inspiring to think about how many of our ancestors risked their lives to make a better life for their loved ones in America.

With so many Italian Americans at the battlefront, it’s not surprising many of them earned medals for heroism. During the war, there were three awards soldiers could earn for acts of valor on the field of battle. The highest was the Medal of Honor, created in 1863. Next in line was the Distinguished Service Cross, created in 1918. Beneath that was the Silver Citation Star, a small device that was affixed to Victory Medal ribbons to show that the wearer had been cited for bravery in action. Upon creation of the full Silver Star medal in 1932, veterans who had received a Silver Citation Star could apply for the award in its new incarnation.

Only one Italian American earned the Medal of Honor during World War I. It was bestowed upon Michael Valente, an immigrant from Casino, for his actions while serving with the 107th Infantry Regiment, 27th Division, near Ronssoy, France, on Sept. 29, 1918. Deployed to the front lines, where his regiment was suffering heavy losses under a withering barrage of fire, Private Valente and another soldier dodged bullets as they rushed two machine gun nests, killing the gunners, capturing 21 enemy soldiers and providing the first penetration of the Hindenburg Line by Allied forces.

Dozens of men of Italian descent earned the Distinguished Service Cross during the war, but there is no way to know how many earned the Silver Citation Star. We are fortunate to have a first-hand account of one such soldier.

Anthony Philip Cardamone was born on Feb. 12, 1895, in Soveria Manelli, Catanzaro, Calabria. He came to the United States with his family in 1898 and settled in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. He was a trimmer’s helper in an iron mill when he was inducted into the Army on Nov. 2, 1917. Assigned initially to a machine gun unit, Cardamone was soon transferred to Company C, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division, as an automatic rifleman. He shipped to France in April 1918 and soon saw heavy combat with one of the hard-fighting regular Army regiments that racked up an impressive record during the war. Cardamone served in the Aisne, Aisne-Marne, Champagne-Marne, St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives, suffering a shrapnel wound in his side on Oct. 14, 1918.

After the war, Cardamone was cited for gallantry in action, probably for what he did south of the Marne River on July 15, 1918. In a letter to his father, dated Nov. 28, 1918, Cardamone described his role in the battle:

“[O]n the night of July 15th [1918], we held a position on the railroad running along the [Marne] river. I was an automatic gunner, and Pettive [sic, an error in the transcription; Private Antonio Pettine, a fellow Italian from Conshohocken] was my helper and loader, and we defended a little hill along the railroad. Around 1 o’clock the Germans began their bombardment, and it sure was hell on earth, you can never imagine what it is to be under a barrage from the Germans. We were in a little hole, and Pettive [sic] and I expected to die every minute. The shells were landing all around us. To give you an idea of what a barrage is, I will tell you that it is like as if somebody was throwing steel and iron at you. A shell when it bursts breaks into a hundred pieces and if one of those pieces hits you, it will tear you to pieces, it is a million times worse than a bullet. When a shell bursts, it breaks into shrapnel, and it looks like scrap iron. Just imagine being hit with a piece of steel scrap, only with such deadly force.

“Well, thank God, we laid low in our little hole, and we survived that barrage; it lasted from 1 o’clock until 4, and those three hours were anxious hours. It was now beginning to be daylight, and we expected the thing to stop, but when the fog from the river had lifted; oh, what a sight was before our eyes, the Germans had crossed the river Marne, and had broken through our right flank, and had us surrounded. We had Germans in front of us, Germans in back of us, and Germans on our flanks. We were surrounded, and we felt like goners. We then decided to break our way through; it was either life or death, so we formed a line, and at the command we all fixed bayonets and charged the Germans in the rear. We did it so good, that we surprised the enemy, and we broke through capturing 135 Germans into the bargain. It was only about 25 of us so you see we did good in getting 135 Fritzs. It was here that Volpe [Corporal Alfred Volpe, a fellow Italian immigrant from Conshohocken, who was reported killed in action on July 15, 1918, but was actually captured; he was released after the war] was killed, and Sassi [Sergeant Damiano Sassi, a fellow Italian immigrant from Conshohocken and a member of the same company as Cardamone] wounded. I helped Sassi to the rear, and two days later we were reorganized. I was made corporal, and in charge of all six automatic men [sic].”

Cardamone saw still more combat before he was wounded during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, as he reported to his father: “At last, on Monday, Oct. 14, at 3:30 p.m. Fritz hit me in the side, and put me out of the war.” After spending many weeks in the hospital, Cardamone returned home to Pennsylvania and found work in the steel industry. In 1923, he married Anna Patitucci, and the couple had two sons, one of whom died in infancy. Cardamone passed away in July 1972 and is buried in his American hometown of Conshohocken. Anthony Cardamone is just one example of the thousands of Italian Americans who were cited for gallantry in action during World War I. We are indeed fortunate to be able to read his own description of his actions on the field of battle.

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Frank Alduino

Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi

The most prominent Italian-American naval officer of the 19th century, Bancroft Gherardi distinguished himself in both war and peace.

During the American Civil War, several officers of Italian descent served in the Union Navy. The highest-ranking among them was Bancroft Gherardi, a versatile officer and distinguished leader in the modern American Navy.

Gherardi’s father, Donato, migrated to the United States from Tuscany in the 1820s. He settled in the Boston area and in 1825 married Jane Bancroft, the daughter of Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft. Several years later, Donato moved his growing family to Louisiana so he could take a teaching position. Bancroft Gherardi was born there on Nov. 10, 1832.

In 1846, Gherardi received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, at the tender age of 13. He graduated in 1852, ranking 14th in his class. Following graduation, Passed Midshipman Gherardi served aboard vessels in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific. When war broke out in 1861, Lt. Gherardi was stationed off the coast of Southern California and tasked with protecting gold-laden Union vessels from rebel commerce raiders. In November 1861, Gherardi became executive officer of the gunboat Chippewa in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Between December 1861 and August 1862, the ship served on the blockade off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. During that period, the Chippewa took part in the capture of a Confederate blockade runner, and Gherardi participated in his first combat action when ships of the North Atlantic Squadron bombarded Confederate-held Fort Macon in North Carolina. The fort surrendered to a combined Army-Navy force in late April.

In July 1862, the 29-year-old Gherardi was promoted to commander. Shortly thereafter, the Chippewa went on a cruise in search of the Confederate commerce raider Florida that took it to the Azores, Europe, Africa and the West Indies. The Union vessel also took part in a futile attempt to capture the Confederate blockade-runner Gibraltar, known formerly as the commerce raider Sumter. Captained by the legendary Raphael Semmes, the Sumter had taken or destroyed 18 northern merchant ships in 1861 before being forced into port at Gibraltar in January 1862. Eventually resold to the Confederacy at auction in December of that year, the vessel was renamed the Gibraltar and used as a blockade runner from 1863-64.

The rebel ship remained a concern for all U.S. commercial vessels. The commander of the Chippewa received orders to “destroy the Sumter whenever he had an opportunity to do so out of neutral jurisdiction.” According to one account, the Chippewa was “watchful as a lynx cruising at the entrance of [Gibraltar] bay, and never losing sight of the [enemy vessel].” Unfortunately, the Gibraltar covertly left port during a gale in February 1863 and sailed into the Atlantic. The Chippewa remained in European waters until it was transferred in April 1863 to Admiral Samuel DuPont’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off the coast of Port Royal, South Carolina.

Gherardi soon left the Atlantic for the Texas Gulf Coast and command of his own ship, the steam gunboat Chocura. The young officer captured several blockade-runners during his six-month stint in Texas waters, including the schooner Fredric the Second, which the Chocura seized while towing another prize, the British schooner Agnes. Gherardi’s efficiency caught the attention of his superiors and proved lucrative for both him and his men. As prescribed by maritime law at the time, the commander and crew were entitled to a percentage of any contraband found aboard ships attempting to penetrate the blockade.

In May 1864, Gherardi was transferred to the waters off Mobile, Alabama, and given command of a new gunboat, the Port Royal. Fame soon followed. In the summer of 1864, Union Admiral David Glasgow Farragut was poised to attack the Confederate forts defending Mobile Bay, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Gulf Coast. Farragut’s fleet would have to contend with the guns of forts Morgan and Gaines (which commanded the entrance to the bay), more than 100 underwater mines, the Confederate ironclad Tennessee and her escort ships.

On Aug. 5, Farragut assembled four ironclad monitors and 14 wooden frigates and headed for the entrance to Mobile Bay. To protect themselves from the murderous fire of the southern forts, the wooden Union ships were paired and tied together. Gherardi’s ship, the Port Royal, and its companion frigate, the Richmond, were third in line of the wooden warships, immediately behind Farragut’s flagship, the Hartford. The monitor Tecumseh led the Union fleet toward Fort Morgan, but it hit a submerged mine and sank almost immediately, killing 113 of 135 crewmembers. Urged on by Farragut’s legendary words, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” the Union flotilla sailed past Fort Morgan’s heavy guns and the rebel minefield at the bay’s entrance. Farragut’s ships then encountered the Tennessee. Admiral Franklin Buchanan, commander of the Confederate ironclad, had left the safety of the fort’s guns to confront the Yankee ships. During a three-hour engagement, Farragut’s vessels rammed the Tennessee several times and eventually bombarded it into submission. The loss of the Tennessee and the passage of the Union fleet into the bay led to the surrender of Fort Gaines on Aug. 8 and Fort Morgan two weeks later.

Gherardi and the crew of the Port Royal played a significant role in one of the most pivotal naval battles of the war. As the ship made its way into the bay, the Port Royal trained its 10-inch pivot gun on Fort Morgan and its rifled cannon on Fort Gaines. Gherardi’s ship also blasted the Tennessee as it “passed down the [Union] line.” Finally, the Port Royal was cut loose from the Richmond and gave chase to the Tennessee’s three escorts. In his official report of the battle, the captain of the Richmond praised Gherardi “for his cool and courageous conduct, from the moment the attack commenced to the time his vessel was cast off by my order to go in chase of the enemy’s three wooden gunboats.” In a dispatch to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Admiral Farragut also commended Gherardi for his actions. The battle of Mobile Bay gave the Union effective control of the entire Gulf of Mexico. Coupled with William Tecumseh Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, it helped stifle peace rumblings in the North and ensure Lincoln’s reelection.

Gherardi remained in the Navy for nearly 30 years after the end of the Civil War, eventually rising to the rank of rear admiral. Over the decades, he helmed the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the North Atlantic Squadron, led a diplomatic mission to Haiti, and commanded a squadron dispatched to South America to prevent war between the U.S. and Chile. A highlight of Admiral Gherardi’s post-Civil War career occurred in April 1893 when he was appointed to lead the Hampton Roads Naval Rendezvous. This grand armada of 38 warships from 10 nations was the first of many activities leading to the opening of the Chicago Exposition.

Gherardi retired from the U.S. Navy in 1894 after 48 years of service. The most prominent Italian-American naval officer of the 19th century died in his Stratford, Connecticut, home on Dec. 10, 1903, and was buried in Annapolis on the Naval Academy grounds.

This article was co-authored by Dr. David Coles.

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Jim Distasio

World War II resistance fighter Giuseppe Lella

A spy for the Allies and a participant in the underground railroad that protected Italy’s Jews during World War II, Giuseppe “Pino” Lella considered himself a coward until an American author persuaded him to share his story with the world.

The war came to Giuseppe “Pino” Lella right as he watched Fred Astaire dance with Ginger Rogers. It was the summer of 1943 and Lella, then 17 years old, was sitting next his brother, Mimmo, at a movie theater in his native Milan watching the cinematic duo twirl across the screen. For a brief moment, the war that had engulfed Europe and Nazi-occupied Italy was extinguished by pure Hollywood escapism.

Then reality came crashing down. First the projector eerily froze on the smiling faces of Rogers and Astaire. Moments later, an air raid siren echoed just outside and the crackle of anti-aircraft guns sent panicked moviegoers screaming from their seats into the chaos outside. Lella and his brother surged toward the exits right as Allied bombers dropped their deadly payload at the rear of the theater, tearing through the back wall and the once magical big screen, hurling pieces of debris toward the escaping throng, striking Lella on his cheek and drawing blood.

“We were lucky enough to be among the first to make it out into the open,” says Lella, now 91 years old and living once again in Milan. “Some people were killed.”

The Lella boys began the walk home through a city with no electricity — its only illumination was the fires burning from the attack. Pino and his brother made it safely back to their mother and father, but this wouldn’t be the first time Pino Lella narrowly averted death. Over the next two years he would put his life on the line numerous times to help others and define what it means to be a hero.

As the war in his home country intensified, Lella became part of an underground railroad helping to move Jews out of Italy through the Swiss Alps, and later served as a spy for the Allies while driving for German General Hans Leyers. He sat on this amazing story for decades until writer Mark Sullivan sought him out after hearing about this exploits at a party in 2006. Sullivan flew to Milan for a marathon interview session with Lella, who claimed his actions were unremarkable.

“I did not want to talk about the war,” Lella told Fra Noi. “I saw things that I did not want to be involved in.”

But Sullivan persisted, conducting lengthy interviews with Lella and touring many of the landmarks of his life in Milan and the surrounding areas. After a decade of research and writing, Sullivan released “Beneath a Scarlet Sky,” a lightly fictionalized version of Lella’s story, in May 2017. Trained as a journalist, Sullivan intended to write the book as a piece of reported nonfiction, but tracking down every one of the corroborating pieces proved elusive.

“So many other characters had died before I heard about Pino Lella, and the Nazis had burned so many documents surrounding his story that even after 10 years of research I had to make informed assumptions in the narrative,” Sullivan says on his website. “Once I surrendered to that, I knew I was in the realm of historical fiction. I gave in to it and adjusted by switching obligations.”

In the end, Lella estimates that “Beneath a Scarlet Sky” is “80 to 90 percent true,” and says he is thrilled with the book and its launch, which started out small and has slowly gathered steam, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in multiple languages. Perhaps most impressive, it was recently optioned by Hollywood for feature-film treatment. Current “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland has been tapped to play young Lella, and famed mogul Amy Pascal (“The Post”) is producing.

Lella’s life is certainly the stuff of thrilling cinema. Born in 1926, he was raised in Milan by parents who designed, manufactured and sold leather goods. He was the oldest of three siblings, including Mimmo and his sister, Francesca, both now deceased. In his youth, he spent three months every year up in the Alps near Lake Como at Casa Alpina, mountain-climbing when the weather was warm and skiing when the snow began falling.

“I was always in the mountains,” says Lella, who developed into an exceptional skier. “That’s where many of the people went out of the city to be in peace.”

And while Casa Alpina served as the backdrop to many carefree days in his youth, it also became a refuge for Lella and his brother, who were sent there by their parents for safety during the war. But when the Nazis began rounding up Italian Jews for extermination, the boys stepped into the fray, regularly taking groups as large as eight through the treacherous mountain terrain and past German checkpoints to get them to safety in Switzerland.

“We were lucky enough to have a place where we could take them away,” Lella says.

Eventually, Lella returned home, but the German army began conscripting Italian youth to send them to the Russian front as forced laborers. His parents, fearful for their son’s life, strongly urged him to enlist in the Army to avoid being sent into what amounted to slavery. Lella hated the Nazis with a fury, but reluctantly agreed, so in 1944 he joined the German army. His facility with languages — including French, English, some German and his native Italian — caught the attention of General Leyers, who was Hitler’s right-hand man in Italy, and soon Lella found himself as the Reich general’s personal driver.

Members of Lella’s family were involved in the anti-German partisan movement surging through Italy at the time, so Lella quickly used his new position to be the eyes and ears of the resistance, gathering up valuable intel that could be passed on to the Allies. During that time, Lella put his personal safety on the line more than two dozen times to save the lives of others.

To say any more about Lella’s life story as chronicled in this fascinating novel would be a spoiler of the highest order. Suffice it to say, throughout “Beneath a Scarlet Sky,” Lella’s story proves to be a riveting page-turner that shines a light on a young man who became an unsung hero of World War II by performing truly extraordinary and selfless feats without ever acknowledging them.

“I was afraid, but I also was very lucky,” says Lella, who only whispered his story to a handful of people before Mark Sullivan came knocking. “Life for me started when the war finally ended in 1945.”

Sullivan wrote that Lella once described himself as more of a coward than a hero during one of their earliest meetings, but Lella says this massive retelling of his life story has given him some perspective on his fateful actions more than 70 years ago.

“If you would’ve asked me then I would have certainly been without a good answer as to why I did what I did,” Lella says. “The history should be known, but it’s not for me to say that I’m brave. I’m not brave. I was there and I was lucky to do what I could.”

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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Linda Grisolia

Army Staff Sergeant Bernie Izzo

Having prepared for 18 months to invade Japan, Bernie Izzo gratefully shifted gears after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Editor’s Note: Bernie passed away in August 2016. This article was published in the June 2016 issue of Fra Noi and is being republished here in his memory.

The youngest of four children, Bernard “Bernie” Izzo was born in Rochester, N.Y. His mother came to the United States with her family when she was 5 years old, and his father traveled alone at the age of 12 to join his older brother. Both parents were from Campobasso, Italy.

After working at several odd jobs, his father opened a jewelry store with the help of a friend, but lost it during the Depression. Izzo’s mother was a homemaker until the Depression, when she worked as a seamstress to help the family.

Growing up in a tightly knit Italian neighborhood, Izzo attended #5 Grammar School and Jefferson High School. Music was taught daily at all public schools in Rochester thanks to the influence of the local Eastman School of Music, founded by George Eastman of Eastman-Kodak acclaim.

The lessons, along with the influence of his high school music teacher, inspired Izzo to study music at Heidelberg College in Ohio. “I just wanted to be like my high school teacher. He was happy, had two children, every other year he bought a new Pontiac,” Bernie says. “I figured, that’s the life.”

Pearl Harbor was attacked when Izzo was completing his first semester at Heidelberg. He immediately went to enlist, but being only 17 years old, he was sent back home. When he turned 18, he tried to enlist again, but was told, “We don’t need you now: We don’t have enough uniforms, we don’t have enough camps.”

His two older brothers were already serving, one in the Navy and the other in the Air Force. Izzo wanted to help his country, too, so he joined the Army Reserves. He completed his second year in college before being called to active duty in 1943.

Izzo deployed to Fort McClellan in Alabama for basic training and then to the Citadel Military School in Charleston, S.C., as part of the Army Specialized Training Program. Upon completion, Izzo transferred to Fort Rucker, Ala., and joined up with the 98th Infantry Division as a replacement. Once it was discovered that Izzo was a vocal music major, he sang at chapel services, funerals, officer’s parties and midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Izzo deployed to Hawaii in April 1944, where the 98th was tasked with defending the islands and preparing for the invasion of Japan, which was scheduled for Nov. 1, 1945. He spent 18 months training as a member of the mortar squad. Operations were continuous from island to island, alternating between jungle and amphibious maneuvers.

The troops were ready, and invasion was imminent. Izzo’s division loaded their supplies and vehicles onto ships, and prepared to join up with troops from the Philippines for the assault. “When you’re 19 or 20, you don’t think anything will happen to you, so we were anxious to get over there and get involved.”

But Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed within three days of each other in early August 1945, ending the war before the 98th was deployed for active combat. Instead, they landed in Japan on Sept. 27, the first division to arrive, and served in Osaka as part of the occupying force.

“We could not dock!” Izzo remembers. “All the docks in the country were bombed out.” The soldiers waded through the water as though they were invading forces and hiked a couple of miles to reach their train.

“In Osaka, half of the city was flat … block after block,” Izzo says. Before the war, it had been the second largest manufacturing city in Japan. In certain areas, some blocks were not completely destroyed: Only those buildings identified by Allied intelligence as being sources of war materials were bombed.

As a member of a squad of 10 men and an officer, Izzo participated in the demobilizing of the Japanese armed forces. The mountainous coastal terrain camouflaged caves where the Japanese soldiers hid and camped. Connecting tunnels were filled with supplies, weapons and ammo, enabling the soldiers to survive for months. Izzo’s squad made daily patrols into the region, searching for these caves, and flushing out the soldiers.

The Japanese officer in charge would formally surrender his sword to the America officer and his men were automatically discharged, free to go home. “They always surrendered,” Izzo remembers. “They wanted to go home as much as we did!” The tunnels were emptied of all supplies and equipment, loaded onto trucks and taken away to be destroyed. Some were dumped into the ocean. These operations went on twice a day for months.

In his off time, Izzo sang whenever he could and was asked to form a glee club, which became quite successful. He began working with an officer who scheduled social events.

Many Japanese choirs and dance groups contacted the Army to perform for the soldiers. Izzo scheduled the events, arranged transportation and took care of the entertainers while they were with the troops.

During this time, the glee club performed in several concerts, and Izzo sang for a radio station in Osaka that was part of the Armed Forces Radio Network. For 10 weeks, he had a Sunday afternoon radio show.

Izzo was discharged in February 1946 as staff sergeant and returned home to Rochester. Back at Heidelberg College, Izzo earned his degree in music on the GI Bill and reconnected with his future wife, Jean, who he met on his first day as a freshman. He received his master’s degree from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.

He and Jean married in 1949 and settled in Chicago, where he began a very successful career in music. Izzo sang in commercials, clubs and churches, and for radio and TV shows. For 10 years, he traveled the country, spending a week or two at each engagement, singing alone or in duos, quartets or larger groups.

During this period, he and Jean had four children and moved to Elmhurst. Izzo decided to find work closer to home and began teaching in the Music Department at North Central College in Naperville.

He continued to perform in concerts, occasionally traveling, and he sang the National Anthem for the Blackhawks for 15 years. Upon retiring from teaching, Izzo sang with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, the Grant Park Symphony and the Lyric Opera Chorus.

Izzo has many photos that he took during his time in Osaka with the Brownie camera that he carried with him. He also has letters that his brothers sent him during the war.

Having recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of his discharge from the Army, Izzo reflects, “I was very lucky. I was very lonesome, homesick, but everybody else was, too!

“I could have kissed Harry Truman’s feet because he planned the bomb,” he concludes. “It was terrible, but I was just thankful we didn’t have to go through the invasion.”

Reprinted with permission from Fra Noi. (Copyright 2021) To learn more, click here.

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