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VETERAN: Salvatore A. Falato
INTERVIEW DATE: February 24, 2012
TRANSCRIBER: Laura Antoniotti
TRANSCRIPTION DATE: May 13, 2013
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LAUREN HORSFIELD: Today is Friday, February 24th.
I'm interviewing Sal Falato.
SALVATORE FALATO: Falato.
HORSFIELD: My name is Lauren Horsfield. I'm
interviewing Sal on behalf of the Veterans History
Project at Central Connecticut State University.
Assisting me is Jonathan Salomone.
Now Sal, could you state your full name and
your birthday for the record?
FALATO: Salvatore A. Falato, July 26, 1919, I was
born.
HORSFIELD: And what war did you serve in?
FALATO: I served in the First -- I served in the
First Infantry Division in the Second World War,
isn't it? Wasn't it the Second World War? Yeah.
HORSFIELD: Okay. And you were in the Army?
FALATO: Yeah, First Infantry Division in the Army.
Let's see. I was in the -- you're gonna want to
know where I was trained, right?
HORSFIELD: We'll get there.
FALATO: Oh, okay.
HORSFIELD: Were you drafted or were you --
FALATO: I was drafted.
HORSFIELD: You were drafted?
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FALATO: Yeah. And then I got a relief until my
wife had the baby.
HORSFIELD: Okay.
FALATO: And then I went right into the -- right
into my service, and that's when I joined my First
Infantry Division Company.
HORSFIELD: And where were you living when you were
drafted?
FALATO: I was living on 42 Dennis Circle in Hamden.
I had my own home. I had a beautiful home. That's
how I was able to get here. I had to have enough
money to give them so I could have my wife...
HORSFIELD: Do you recall your first days of
service?
FALATO: My first day of service? Not really
because my first day of service is when I -- when
they put me in the First Infantry Division, Company
F. That's all I can give you there. I don't know.
HORSFIELD: Where did you do your basic training?
FALATO: Camp Croft, South Carolina. I've got it
right here. Camp Croft, South Carolina.
HORSFIELD: Do you remember anything about your
basic training?
FALATO: I do. That's why I even made a note. I
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was trained in Camp Croft, South Carolina, as an
infantry rifleman, and of course I learned how to
fire all weapons like machine gun, BAR, Browning
Automatic Rifle, rifleman, BAR, all the infantry
weapons I could say because in order to -- you have
to pass all those to get into the Army, otherwise
you can't -- how can an infantryman fire?
I have to know -- I have to know a lot
about how the grenades -- how to use grenades, hand
grenades, and I also have to know some field
artillery, fire field artillery. Before that, I had
basic -- see, you're missing a lot, though. See, I
just remembered now.
Before I was -- when I was going to school,
I had in mind to be in the Army, and I wanted to
be -- I wanted to be -- I wanted to be -- I wanted
to be high in the service like, so I started
training in -- Roosevelt had a plan to give every --
I was in the Citizens' Military Training Camp,
Citizens' Mil -- that's the CMTC, Citizens' Military
Training Camp. I took my first training -- my basic
training in that field there.
See, that's a good thing he did, Roosevelt.
A lot of people started their -- like even the
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pilots. They started their training in one of those
fields and -- well, don't make it too complicated.
Forget about that.
But I had intentions to be higher than a
First Class. I wanted to be like a lieutenant or a
captain, you know? The only way I can get into that
is -- if I was the only one left, the captain would
have to decide Sal to be -- take his place. That's
how a lot of people get into it because some of them
are only -- you lose everybody and then you only
have one man left. You have to make that guy,
whoever is left, give him the -- what other
questions are you going to have?
HORSFIELD: I've got plenty of them. So after your
basic training in South Carolina, you were assigned
to the First Infantry --
FALATO: Yeah.
HORSFIELD: -- Division? And then so after you left
South Carolina, where did you go?
FALATO: Then that's when I joined the First
Infantry Division. That was assigned to
the -- because all of us were assigned someplace
because they were ready for the invasion at that
time.
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I mean, I didn't -- I don't know for a
fact, but I know that we were being trained for the
first assault, and I remember that but I can't prove
anything on that. They have records to decide
where I -- when I went there.
But I was in the -- I made the -- in other
words, I survived -- I survived enough to -- all the
battles to get into the Hurtgen Forest. No, before
that -- wait. That's right. Wait a minute. Before
that, I went to the -- I was with Company F as a
rifleman, and I went to the -- up to Givet, France.
That town was already taken when they -- when I went
there.
I was in Givet, France. We lost men before
that, but I don't know who they were. And then I
went into the Hurtgen Forest. That's when I --
that's where I would say that was my baptism of war,
really war, I mean not a mop-up like Givet. Givet
was like a picnic.
And let's see. I was still with my -- some
of my buddies. I lost some of them. I was -- most
of them I was with. We were captured by the German
panzer division, the tanks, German tank division.
HORSFIELD: Okay. Do you remember what month or
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year it was?
FALATO: No, it was during the -- right after
Thanksgiving. I don't know what that was because I
remember we had our turkey on the field and after
that, I got captured by the German
panzer. Not me only, the whole battalion.
They knew we were coming anyway. They --
we had a green -- a green lieutenant there. He
didn't know how to -- my sergeant was telling him,
"We're going too fast," and that's -- my sergeant
was speaking. He knew we were -- they were sucking
us in to go.
And see, they knew we were going -- they
had a cardage (ph) on the top of the hill there.
They knew we were going for that because it was a
good focal point to observe and to fire.
They knew we were going for that, and my
sergeant -- I remember him telling him, "We're going
into -- they're sucking us in. They know what we
want to do over there, just like what you know what
you want to do over there."
And what happened was the tanks came in and
they wiped us all out. That's when I was captured
by the German panzer division.
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HORSFIELD: After you were captured, where were you
sent?
FALATO: They sent us to various camps which I don't
remember until I got to my main camp. It was in
Stalag -- which Stalag was it? I was a prisoner of
war in Stalag IV-B. That was my Stalag. IV-B was
my Stalag, and that's where I lost my eye, my right
eye.
Well, one time -- do you have to know that?
Do you want to know that?
SALOMONE: Actually I'm going to stop.
(Pause in recording)
FALATO: "Krank." "Krank" is "sick" in German and
they didn't want to know anything. They wanted to
go out. So I wasn't going out, so they took the
rifle. They hit me on the head, and I didn't pass
out. They just hit me. I know they were beating me
some more and then they beat me on the head, then
they beat me over here.
My head when I was -- my head was a big
head, and his buddy, the German himself, he says,
"If you keep hitting him," I understood him to say,
"we can't get him out and he can't work," because
they were worried about me working, you know? And
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he said something to that effect.
Anyway, what's his name, my buddy, he
was -- he knew how to speak German. He was a
German. He was a United States. He was a buddy.
And he says if it wasn't for his buddy that was with
him, the German buddy, he says he tried to tell him,
"You keep beating him and then he won't be able to
go at all, you know? And then what are you going to
do."
So anyway, it's a good thing he stopped
because I had to go to work anyway, but my
buddies -- I remember their name but I can't
remember now. They picked me up and they helped me
and they covered me up all the time.
In other words, when we were digging these
pipelines for them to put the water through this
town that they had, they were building some kind of
a town and a -- where was I? Well, I had to work
anyway, and I remember working.
And my buddies covered me up every time the
guard -- you know, they go away, like they just pass
back and back, back and forth, and every time the
guy -- they used to go away, they used to shovel all
the stones away for me, you know, and they covered
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me up, in other words, otherwise I might have got
maybe another rifle butt someplace, you know. They
knew how to use the rifle butt very good.
And every once in a while, I still dream
about them today, even today. I can't even -- I
can't even enjoy a good movie. Sometimes they have
little scenes about the war and it brings it back to
me. Not the war itself, the stupid Germans.
I was trained to be in combat. I always
told them but I was never trained to be a prisoner
of war. That was the mistake that this government
made. They used to give you 15 minutes about all
you have to do when you become a prisoner, rank,
name and serial number and that's all.
They should have said, you know, something
else, like you're going to be beaten the hell out of
and you've got to know what to say when you haven't
got your right mind.
So they never trained me to be a -- I was
trained to be -- I was trained to be not -- I wasn't
trained never to be a prisoner of war which they
should have at least gave me a hint of what you
are -- not just my name, rank and serial number.
That was dumb.
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They took my wife's picture away from me
and everything, and they took my daughter -- my
wife's baby daughter and they must have used those
for -- they could forge passports for their people,
whoever they got in Germany.
Because I asked them a lot, somebody, "What
do they need my photographs for?" Well, you know,
they use it for passports, you know. But they took
my wife's picture, they took my baby, my wife's baby
and -- I'm getting drifted away. What else do you
want to know?
HORSFIELD: We're going to back up a little bit,
okay?
FALATO: Yeah.
HORSFIELD: So you went from your basic training and
then -- and you went into the First Infantry
Division and then you went to --
FALATO: Hurtgen Forest.
HORSFIELD: Hurtgen Forest, France. And what was it
like when you got to France?
FALATO: When I got to France, Givet, France, that
was a picnic. At the time it was already taken.
You'd get sporadic fire, you know, sniper fires and
all that, and that was a picnic. And as a matter of
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fact, my wife's aunt had a restaurant in Givet,
France.
SALOMONE: No kidding?
FALATO: And I got to -- we were there long enough
that I got to see her and her restaurant and they
fed me. I had a good time there.
SALOMONE: That's good.
FALATO: She came over to visit me after when I was
in the United States. She had a good family. That
was my wife's family.
SALOMONE: Right.
FALATO: I mean, not her immediate family. They
were like aunts and uncles like, you know, and they
had a nice restaurant over there.
SALOMONE: And they fed you?
FALATO: So I got carried away again.
HORSFIELD: That's okay. So you got to Givet,
France, and --
FALATO: Givet, France.
HORSFIELD: Givet, France, where the restaurant was,
and did you see combat there or did you --
FALATO: No. Sporadic fire. Don't even mention it
because I never even had to use my rifle. The town
was already taken, and some of us knew -- I don't
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want to say this. This might hurt one of my
friends.
A lot of us knew that we were headed for
the Hurtgen Forest because that's where they were
losing all their men at that time, and that was just
before Thanksgiving I think because I remember we
had a nice day. They fed us a good meal on the
field. But that's -- once we got into Hurtgen
Forest, that was real. That was real business
there.
HORSFIELD: That was combat?
FALATO: Yeah. And I survived it. I never even got
wounded because we lost quite a few guys, though. I
lost some of my close buddies, too. One of them was
shot in the leg.
And I gave him first aid, and that's all I
remember there. Then I never seen him until I got
home. He was discharged after. That's what he told
me. After that, he might have stood -- he probably
went to school troops up in Georgia.
Before you get discharged, you go to
Georgia in school troops. That's where they use --
all the people who got out of the war, they end up
in Georgia and they called that school troops.
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We were performing different battle forms
that they tell us to do, so the generals-to-be and
the lieutenants-to-be are learning different
maneuvers that they assign us to do, and then they
explain to them what's right and what's wrong about
whatever their business was. I don't know what they
got out of it. That's in Georgia. Then I got back
home, then the war was over for me outside of what I
have to live with. That's all.
SALOMONE: Right.
HORSFIELD: And when you were in France, how did you
stay in touch with your family? Did you write
letters?
FALATO: I could never get in touch -- I never had
time to write or anything like that, no. They must
have notified -- they notified my wife that, "We saw
your husband." That's what I mean. There's nothing
really to know when you're a prisoner of war.
HORSFIELD: Do you remember what the food was like?
FALATO: What?
HORSFIELD: Do you remember what the food was like
besides your Thanksgiving dinner? The food?
FALATO: When I was a prisoner of war?
HORSFIELD: No, in France before you were --
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FALATO: In France? Oh, yeah. We went in the
restaurant and you name it and I had it. And they
knew how to cook, yeah. I enjoyed myself in Givet,
France. But I can't say there was a battle because
I never was in any battle there. The town was
already taken, and you'd get sporadic fire every
once in a while.
HORSFIELD: Did you have plenty of supplies while
you were in France?
FALATO: What kind of supplies?
HORSFIELD: Ammunition, things like that?
FALATO: No, I didn't -- I wasn't in
there to -- I just went there in the restaurant.
But then after that, I couldn't -- they wouldn't
allow me to go there every time I felt like it.
We were still ready to go to war, and then
we went to -- we went into the Hurtgen Forest, and
that's when I learned -- that was my baptism of
fire. And not only fire, you'd get these shrapnels
that used to explode prematurely and that's how
they -- the shells used to hit the trees and explode
ahead of time and you'd get -- a lot of people got
wounded from it without even being in the battle,
you know.
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The forest itself was a danger to us, and
that was not -- that's not a natural forest. The
Germans built that after World War I, and they built
that forest themselves. You could put that in
history because they had plans way before we got
there to use that because when we were in there,
even when I was captured, I went in some of their
bunkers.
They were -- they could bomb all they want
and we were so far underground that -- the bunkers
were so sealed with logs going over them that --
because I was under there with them, the Germans,
when I was captured before they sent me up wherever
they wanted me to go. But that's no good for that.
HORSFIELD: Did you do anything for good luck?
FALATO: Huh?
HORSFIELD: Did you do anything for good luck?
FALATO: For good luck? No. I didn't have any --
oh, I'm a religious man, you know, and I did --
before I went anywhere, I had certain prayers that I
used to do that I was taught, and I still do them
today. You can see my bible there and my prayer is
there, and that's what I believe. The Lord took
care of me. I believe it because I'm a believer.
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But I'm not a -- that's all I can say.
I had -- all my experiences was because I
was a POW mostly, right? They took a soldier away
from there, United States, or whoever -- all my
buddies were with me.
Some of them today -- my sergeant, today
his whole family, I couldn't get in touch with them
when I was there. I wanted to get in touch with
Bill Grocer (ph). He was a sergeant. I says I want
to talk to Bill because he was -- happened to be a
neighbor of mine, too, when we got out.
They would never give me any information
what happened to him. They only said he's with his
son, and I think what happened was that -- I got it
from Henry St. Pierre (ph). He was the one that
survived the tank invasion by the Germans, and he
was -- he survived from being captured, Henry St.
Pierre (ph).
And he survived being captured, and he says
when he met him, his parents probably disowned him
because he was a drunker. He turned out to be -- he
drank. So I think his son picked him up, and my
daughter -- my daughter traced him -- traced -- I
don't know how she did it, but she got in touch with
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him, and the only thing that we got out of him was
that his son is taking care of him.
But she did -- we did go see another one of
my buddies after the war with my wife and my two
children, and we visited them and that's the only
time I met them. I met a few of them. They were in
Pennsylvania. I got a chance to talk to their wives
and I met -- I saw -- I can't think of her name
either. I even lost -- we used to send Christmas
cards to one another. They were in Pennsylvania. I
don't know.
HORSFIELD: So you were captured and you were sent
to smaller camps until you got to Stalag B or IV?
FALATO: IV-B.
HORSFIELD: IV-B?
FALATO: Yeah. That's my main -- that should be in
the record. They know where all these Stalags are,
and that was in the southern part of Germany.
HORSFIELD: Was your whole platoon sent together?
FALATO: Not the whole platoon, just a few of them
that survived. A lot of them didn't even make it to
the camp because the Germans -- those tanks, when
they come in with the tanks, they knew we were going
to go there. It was a good _____ for everybody.
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And we were surprised. You know, all we
could do was try to fight with rifles against a
tank, and it didn't take them long to wipe us out.
And Henry St. Pierre (ph) made it because when I met
him, he said that when they -- when the tanks came
in and they leveled the whole {gesturing}, if we
were in there, we wouldn't have a chance. They
leveled the whole thing down with their tanks, and
that's it there.
HORSFIELD: Do you remember anything about the
Stalag IV-B?
FALATO: That's where they banged me. I couldn't go
to work. I told you I had -- I thought I had a
fever and anyway, I knew I was sick anyway, and I
says, "I can't go out. I can't make it." And the
guy tried to say in English, you know -- even this
New York guy that came from New York, he tried to
talk German to them and tried to say, "He can't
work. Er ist krank," he says. "Er ist krank." I'm
sick. When you're krank, "krank" means sick. I am
sick, you know? And he tried to speak to them, but
they wouldn't listen so they just keep beating you
up.
Then it must have been his buddy that must
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have said if you keep beating him up, we can't take
him out to work, then what are you going to do, you
know? Because they used to take us out, line us
up -- if you're healthy, line us up and you'd wait
for hours until they finished their breakfast and
everything. So you're waiting for hours in the
cold, and you haven't got real clothes on anymore.
You probably got rags that they gave you, you know,
different clothing that they gave us.
HORSFIELD: They took your clothing?
FALATO: They took -- they used our
clothes -- first as soon as we got captured -- I
have to tell you the important part. The first
time -- the first -- as soon as we got captured,
they must have said we want clean uniforms. We
don't want no blood because that's how -- they used
our uniforms. When we were captured, we had to
strip.
They used our clothing to imitate Germans
to fight the war because they infiltrated us by
using our clothing. They imitated that we were --
they -- a lot of them knew how to speak English, and
they imitated them so it's like Germans -- I mean
like English.
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So right away our clothes were used for
them to infiltrate the battle of their -- the battle
of the -- whoever those battles were -- I forget
that battle.
SALOMONE: Bulge?
FALATO: Huh?
SALOMONE: Bulge?
HORSFIELD: The Battle of the Bulge?
FALATO: The Bulge -- no -- yeah, the Bulge. When
the Bulge happened, they were able to make that
Bulge successful because they used our clothing to
imitate -- the Germans were imitating the United
States, and they got in there -- that's how they got
into the Battle of the Bulge there.
And we lost a lot of men there because of
that because they took -- they used our clothing.
They made sure that, you know, they didn't want to
get any blood, you know, because it was a sure thing
when they came in with the tanks, they knew they
were going to get a lot of POWs, so they must have
said we want clean uniforms, you know. And that's
how they did it.
That's my theory, and it sounds logical
that that's how they infiltrated because they know
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they have Americans -- they knew a lot of Americans
were fooled, and that's how they got into the Battle
of the Bulge.
And then a lot of times they -- whoever was
left on the field, the Germans backed up a truck and
they machine gunned all the guys that were alive in
the Bulge. You know, there was a lot of guys that
were alive before the Germans got there and they did
the job.
See, now a lot of people don't know about
that. They used our uniforms to infiltrate United
States troops. That's how they got in there. It
wouldn't have been that easy. They would have had
more -- it took Patton after to come in and clean
them
all out.
That's why when
they
say -- one of
the guys
that were interviewing me when we were being
discharged at Lucky Strike Camp, he says, "You're
entitled to get a medal." I said, "I don't
want
a
medal because"...
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