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TRANSCRIBER: Elizabeth A. Lemke - June 7, 2011
GARY BURNETT: Hello. This is Gary Burnett. It's Wednesday
afternoon, April 7th, 2010. This gentleman in front of
me is Joseph Romboli and his date of birth is 4/21/1926.
He served in the U.S. Army with the 309th Field
Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division, and his
highest rank was as a sergeant, and he served in World
War II in Europe.
So, Mr. Romboli, thank you for having me here.
JOSEPH ROMBOLI: You're welcome.
BURNETT: Let's start off by just asking you the first question
on our list here. Were you drafted or did you enlist,
sir?
ROMBOLI: No. I was drafted. I was -- in early spring of 1944
I became 18 years old and I was eligible for the draft
and I was drafted. I -- from Fort Devens, our port of
entry, I was shipped to Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
where I received my basic training. I was trained both
infantry and artillery.
From there I went -- we went to Fort Meade, which was a
reception center ready for being dis -- placed wherever
we were supposed to go. I spent about three weeks
there. And in mid-December the Battle of Bulge broke
out. We were sent directly to Fort Mile-- Camp Miles
Standish in Massachusetts where the next day we boarded
a train that brought us to Boston Harbor. From Boston
Harbor we boarded a ship called the Aquitania. It was
an English ship converted into a troop ship.
We were 9,000 men, most of us 18 years old. We left
Boston Harbor and from then on we were in harm's way.
The second night out we went along without an escort.
The ship was armed with six-inch guns and depth charges.
Then the second night out, we were -- I was down -- my
crew were down in the G deck, which was just below water
level. And all of a sudden we heard these tremendous
blasts and somebody hollered out, We've been torpedoed.
Well, I guess when you looked around, everybody was just
as white as a sheet and it was just a panic. And
finally, an English soldier came down -- an English
sailor came down and he says, Oh, he said, it's all
right. We weren't torpedoed. We just ran over a -- we
think a German submarine and dropped depth charges.
That's what they did. They had sonar and whenever they
picked up submarines, they would charge and try to ram
them. And when they passed over them, they would drop
depth charges.
So that was a little -- anyway from then on, it was a
pretty good trip. We ended up in -- six days later in
Scotland -- Glasgow, Scotland.
From there we boarded a train and through England,
through Scotland, England, down to a town of Southampton
which was on the English Channel. The next day I --
it's hard to remember, but I think it was Christmas Day,
we crossed the English Channel on an LST and we landed
at LeHarve, France, and we spent that night in a camp
called -- I think it was called Camp Lucky Strike.
The next day they put us on a train, cattle cars. We
were rammed -- were jammed in there, packed in there
like sardines. They took us from LeHarve to a town just
south of Paris, Fontainebleau, Paris -- Fontainebleau,
France. There they -- we picked up equipment. Again,
we all carried M1 rifles because that's what the -- they
needed mostly were infantry replacements. And they put
us back on this cattle car and the next day we headed
towards the front lines.
And I remember the train stopping during the day in a
rock cut. And we got out and they fed us C rations or
whatever. The reason they stopped there was we were
already in range of enemy planes and they were searching
for troops -- troop trains which were good targets for
them.
Finally, that night we boarded a train again and the
next morning we arrived in a little town, if I remember
right, called Tongres, Belgium. It was -- from there we
spent that night in a little tent camp right out of the
outskirts of the town. And I remember that place
vividly because that night we heard a -- this noise.
And all of a sudden it stopped. And somebody said, Hit
the ground. It was a buzz bomb, one of those rocket --
those V-1 rockets and it ended up probably a half a mile
from us in the town.
And we were sleeping on the frozen ground. We were --
and I remember bouncing off the ground. That's how bad
the explosion was. Anyway, the next day we -- they took
us to Aachen, Germany. It was right on the
Belgium/German border. And that was the replacement
center where the units came from the front lines to pick
up their replacements.
And I remember being in a long line. And all of a
sudden my name was called out. And this officer said to
me, he says, Come with me. He said -- he gave me -- I
forget his name, but he said, put -- you have to put
your M1 over here and pick up a carbine. You're going
to be a replacement in the 309th Field Artillery
Battalion, because I was trained on a howitzer also,
and we headed -- from there we headed to the front
lines. And on the way we started seeing the results of
warfare; little towns that were wiped out by artillery,
tanks and vehicles burned out along the sides of the
road. The snow was about a foot of snow on the ground.
The temperature was down in the teens.
Finally, we reached this gunner replacement where he
introduced me to the crew. By the way, on the way he
said to me, he says, You're going to be with this crew,
this first gun section of the 309th Field Artillery
Battalion where the gun crew, most of them were killed
or the rest wounded just a few days earlier by an air
burst.
So that was -- well, from then on we spent that winter
in the Ardennes, back and forth. Sometimes they'd push
us back a mile or two. Sometimes we'd advance. But
usually right within the -- we were right on the
Siegfried Line and it was one of the coldest and
snowiest winters on record.
Our casualties from trench foot and frostbite were
staggering. We slept outside. We lived outside 24
hours a day. We just -- layers of clothes on our back.
No rubberwear, just leather shoes. Feet were constantly
soaking wet. I was smart enough, along with a few
others, to keep a spare set of stockings between my
clothes in my chest and then every couple days I was
able to change my stockings. And I think that's why I
still have my feet today.
Anyway, things went on. We had a lot of encounters.
The infantry probably had a lot more confrontations than
we did, but we had quite a few. We had planes strafing
us during the day. Patrols -- German patrols at night
we had to deal with that tried to knock us out. They'd
sneak up on us and try to throw a grenade, which
happened a couple of times with us, and luckily, we had
a little submachine gun that the guy that was always on
guard, he took care of things.
When we moved, we had snipers to contend with; land
mines. It was an interesting --
Anyway, by late February when the weather broke, we
finally broke through the Siegfried Line and headed
toward -- across the Cologne Plain towards the Rhine
River, the German's last natural barrier. And one
morning we were called to head south to a little town
called Remagen where a railroad bridge was captured and
attacked by a unit of the 9th Army. And our two
infantry regiments already crossing the river on the
bridge and our job was to set up on the bank of the
Rhine and shell the hills overlooking the bridgehead.
And I think we fired more rounds in two days there than
we did during all the months in the Ardennes. They kept
bringing truckloads of ammunition to us. And there we
had a secret weapon, a new fuse called a Pozit fuse. It
was a proximity fuse that allowed the shell to explode
like 50 to 75 feet before it hit the ground. And it was
devastating to the German troops that were trying to
advance on our bridgehead.
And I think somewhere along the line we never received
it, but they tell us that they gave us the -- we have a
unit citation for -- for that particular battle and
there's a big plaque there.
Ellie and I and some friends went on a river cruise
there back about, oh, 20 years ago, and we stopped there
and, you know, the abutments of the bridge, the old
bridge, is still standing. And there are two plaques
there honoring the 78th Infantry Division and the 9th
Armament and another plaque for my outfit, the 309th
Field Artillery.
So from the -- and then we became out of range and we
had to wait for the -- for a pontoon bridge being built
across the river. The old bridge was too rickety. It
was hit by bombs. We saw the first -- as a matter of
fact, we saw so many airplanes there, more than we saw
in the Ardennes all winter. They tried to knock the
bridge out. Two that we -- we saw the first two German
jets come down, dive down, and it was like reading a
Flash Gordon in my -- in our day. And he used V-2 buzz
bombs even. They hit way off target, but this is how
desperate they were to get rid of that bridge, because
that was the last connection across the Rhine.
Anyway, the morning they finished the pontoon bridge, we
were the first to cross -- my battalion, because they
wouldn't let us cross the old bridge. We were too
heavy. We had tractors that pulled the guns and we were
heavy.
Well, we got across, about halfway across, and they had
a smoke screen, but the Germans had the bridge zeroed
in, and boy, all hell broke loose. It was like the
biggest firework display that I ever saw.
We were -- we got to the other side luckily. We were
bleeding all over from little pieces of shrapnel that
hit us, but nothing -- my crew, nothing; but the ones
behind us weren't so lucky. They got hit pretty bad.
Well, from there we ended up heading north to the Roer,
one of the big German industrial cities of the Roer.
And about a month after we crossed the river, we ended
up surrounding the three complete German armies, as a
matter of fact, and the battle went on for a couple of
weeks. They finally surrendered and that was the end of
And then a couple of days later they sent us to occupy
the city of Kassel. We were the first foot soldiers
with the tanks and bypassed the city and they were
headed towards Berlin. And that was an interesting
thing too. We got to that city that night and it was
all bombed out. There's pictures that you'll see that I
had of the city. It seemed like everybody was gone.
And my crew, I had about four men. We had to occupy --
we had to guard this bridge over the Fulda River. And
our orders were to check all the servicemen and they
were discharging everybody. We would detain all the
S.S. men that came through. They were after them.
Anyway, that night there were buildings on the outskirt
and we could see the shades going up and down and we
knew somebody was there. And the next morning it was
unreal. People came out of those buildings as though
nothing happened; mostly women and children and that was
it.
We -- from there we ended up training for the next two
months for the Japanese war which was still going on.
We were -- we were on this little town and there was a
lake there. We were practicing --
BURNETT: -- amphibious?
ROMBOLI: -- amphibious --
BURNETT: -- exercises?
ROMBOLI: Yeah.
BURNETT: Wow.
ROMBOLI: Yeah. Finally, the war ended in Japan and that was
it. And from there they sent us to occupy the city of
Berlin. And from Berlin I ended up coming home in
February of '46. I had -- my father was dying of
cancer, so the Red Cross had sent me papers to come home
and I came home. Then after that I was discharged in
April, late April, and I joined the Reserve for three
years. And that's my story.
BURNETT: Well, Joe, I was wondering if you would have any
memories about your life in the military as far as what
would you do for fun or for good luck or to help you
survive or whatnot?
You probably didn't get much entertainment in those
days.
ROMBOLI: Yeah, we didn't get any -- the entertainment came
later when we ended up in the Army of Occupation. Then
we went on vacations.
I remember going to Paris one year for -- or one month
there for a week and later on a week in Switzerland,
which is pretty nice. Other than that, when I went in,
we, for about five months of straight combat, we had
no -- never slept in a bed until we got into the cities
there and then there were houses -- abandoned houses.
We were able to go inside and take a shower and that was
another story.
In the Ardennes it was -- it was -- the Ardennes was
really bad. We had no way of washing, even our
mess-kits. The kitchen would try to get us one hot meal
a day if they could reach us. And when we had -- they
got through eating, we had no way of cleaning our
mess-kits; only snow. We used snow and wiped them out.
And we all ended up with dysentery and it was awful, you
know, especially when we didn't even have toilet paper.
We were out of toilet paper and that's a story that's
unbelievable.
Yeah. But when -- after -- after the Army of
Occupation, it was all together different. It was like
coming out of -- one of the guys I even -- my tape, I
remember saying it was like coming out of hell and
ascending into heaven.
BURNETT: How so? How was it -- how much different was it?
ROMBOLI: Well, geez, we ended up living inside. We had
buildings. We had people doing all our laundry. We fed
'em. Our kitchen would get enough food to feed these
people. Oh, it was like living like a king after that.
BURNETT: So you lived in Germany then right after the war
closed?
ROMBOLI: After the war we lived in -- with the two cities.
First it was the city of Kassel, which is in the central
part of Germany, and it was supposed to be one of the
real Nazi cities from what I understand.
But we had -- we had no problem with, you know, like
now, you know, this war. These fellows, they go in and
they have all kinds of people trying to kill them. We
had nothing -- well, we were law and order. You know,
we couldn't -- we didn't stand for anything but what we
wanted and that was it.
BURNETT: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Any recollections of what the
German people were like?
ROMBOLI: They were -- what I said was that they turned out to
be very friendly. They -- you know, they were happy
that they were occupied by the Americans instead of the
Russians. That was a big deal.
And by the way, when we did occupy the city of Berlin,
we were with the Russians and the English and the
French. And we had a lot of problems with the Russians.
We had more problems with the Russians than we did with
the Germans.
They were some crew, I'll tell ya. Every night we'd end
up in fights in these pubs, you know. We would go down
and have a few drinks and they ended up having to fight
with the Russians; not the Germans, the Russians,
usually over women.
BURNETT: Over women?
ROMBOLI: (Laughing.)
BURNETT: So, well, did you go to work or go to school after
you got out?
ROMBOLI: No. I went to work. My father ended up passing
away. I was the only child. I ended up having to
support my mother. I would have gone. I would have
liked to have gone, but I didn't have that opportunity.
It turned out all right eventually. I went in business
for myself and I did all right. I would have liked to
have gone probably to engineering school and something
like that, but it didn't work out.
BURNETT: I noticed downstairs, Joe, you showed me a plaque.
You've been a member of the American Legion for 50
ROMBOLI: Yeah. Yeah.
BURNETT: That's -- that obviously shows some dedication?
ROMBOLI: Yeah. We -- I was one of the 25 guys that originally
started our post here in Durham. And then after 50
years they gave us a plaque.
BURNETT: Nice. Nice.
ROMBOLI: I belong to the VFW here in town and belong to the
Veterans of the Battle of Bulge, both nationally and
here in the state.
BURNETT: Now, do they have reunions?
ROMBOLI: Oh, we get together three, four times a year; every
quarter. And we -- in a restaurant in Wellingford. And
we bring our wives if, you know, if your wife is still
living. And we have a meeting and usually somebody
comes and speaks to us from all over.
Then we've had VFW people come, American Legion veterans
that are decorated veterans that have stories to tell.
It's interesting. Yeah, I belonged to that for a number
of years. We're down -- we're getting down to -- when I
first joined the club, when we were -- we had a
membership of probably over a hundred or so. Now we're
down to about 28 or so left. I'm one of the youngest,
of course, that could have participated in World War II.
Yeah, time is running out.
BURNETT: Joe, how would you say that your service affected
your life?
ROMBOLI: Oh, I've been proud of what I went through, you know.
It was a tough, tough grind there for the first year or
so in the service. I'm lucky I'm here, really, through
some of the things that happened to us.
And, you know, for a while when I first got out I think
I tried to forget what happened. And even my wife, she
knew I was in the service, but it was many years after
we were married that she found out that I was in a
combat position there. But it probably made me a
stronger person, you know. I've become fearless. They
didn't do away with me then. I used to say to myself:
I don't know how they will now.
Yeah, we spent a lot of scary nights, I'll tell you.
Some of the nights, I remember saying, I wonder if we'll
ever see the light of day. Not just for the war around
it, but the weather, the conditions we lived in.
BURNETT: All right. Joseph Romboli, thank you very much for
your time.
ROMBOLI: You're welcome.
(Interruption)
ROMBOLI: The tanks once.
BURNETT: The tanks came?
ROMBOLI: Two -- two tanks one morning. And we were -- we got
what they call a march order. We got a telephone call
to move. Move out. They had broken through. That
happened often, you know, but that gave us plenty of
time to, you know, hook up. We would have a tractor
there we would hook a gun to and then we would move back
maybe a mile or two.
But this time two tanks came up over the horizon and we
ended up shooting it out with them in direct fire. And
then -- luckily, we didn't hit them, but luckily, they
turned around and --
BURNETT: Wow. And they didn't hit you either?
ROMBOLI: No. They didn't even fire a shell at us. And so we
had a -- like our gun and a number two gun were right
away loaded for direct fire. We fired a couple of
shots; exploded pretty close to them.
BURNETT: These were panzers?
ROMBOLI: I guess they figured, Hey, we better not get any
closer. They turned around and --
BURNETT: These were the big tanks or the --
ROMBOLI: They were the big ones. I don't know whether they
were the Tigers or what they were.
BURNETT: Was there any infantry with them or no?
ROMBOLI: No. We didn't see any infantry with them. You know,
the front lines in those days were -- it wasn't a solid
line like World War I where, you know -- you know, there
were places where there weren't -- wasn't anybody there.
And then, you know, there'd be a few infantry companies
here and there, but there were holes in between where --
BURNETT: Yep.
ROMBOLI: Yeah. You want to take this tape just if you get
time?