Sharing a lifetime of experiences, WWII veterans speak at West

By Jen Cowart
Posted 2/11/16

World War II veterans Ben Carbone and Domenic Giarrusso paid a visit to the students in Jeffrey Carpenter’s social studies class last week, passing along years of experiences to the students in an …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Sharing a lifetime of experiences, WWII veterans speak at West

Posted

World War II veterans Ben Carbone and Domenic Giarrusso paid a visit to the students in Jeffrey Carpenter’s social studies class last week, passing along years of experiences to the students in an hour’s time.

The two men had once been high school students themselves before sacrificing their youth to join the military. Also present for the hour-long event was Ronald Garafano, a nephew of Karen Casale, who is a faculty member at West. Garafano recently finished his basic training in the Air Force.

Additionally, Casale’s sister in-law Maria Casale was a guest. Maria is the daughter of John Casale, a World War II veteran who, before his death last spring, spoke to the students at West last year and participated in a graduation ceremony for Giarrusso.

As they spoke before a captivated audience, Giarrusso and Carbone took turns telling their stories, seemingly minimizing their own sacrifices while praising one another for their service. The two had a collection of photographs with them and held them up as they spoke, passing them around the room afterwards.

“We’re not speaking from a script,” Giarrusso said. “I’m speaking from what I feel. During World War II, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, I felt I had to serve my country, but I was a little bit young. I had to wait until I was 17-1/2 and got permission from my father, who had signed the papers so I could sign up.”

Giarrusso left before his graduation from Classical High School in Providence and did not receive his diploma until last spring during the ceremony at West.

Carbone was working at Brown and Sharpe at the time he got his papers and joined the military.

“I passed the physical with flying colors. I’d always wanted to join the Navy, but we knew that the Navy had a one-week leave and the Army had two weeks’ leave, so I refused to sign the papers, and they made me go and sit on a bench,” Carbone said. “The major came over to me and asked me if I wanted to join the Army/Air Force, and I said yes. He went and argued with the Navy guy, but the Army/Air Force had preference over the Navy, so I was able to join the Army/Air Force.”

The Air Force was not established as a separate branch of the military until 1947.

Both men initially arrived at Fort Devens.

“They didn’t have enough clothes to issue us, so we had to wait a while,” Giarrusso said. “Once clothes were available, they put us on a train down to Florida. There was a plank down the middle of the train, and we had to take our mess kits and put one boiled potato into it. That was our lunch. We went to Miami Beach and they put us in a hotel. They took over the hotel. It still had civilians in it and they read a proclamation that all the guests had 24 hours to vacate the hotel. The Army was taking over.”

Once in Miami for training, Giarrusso was sent to St. Louis and given technical training.

“That was a joy because I couldn’t afford to pay to go to a technical school, to go into a technical field,” he said. “Our schedule wasn’t easy. We had calisthenics at 5:30 before breakfast and we had eight full hours of schooling with a 30-minute lunch. We had a half-hour drill before supper, a close order drill. I thought this was ridiculous. Why did we have to do the same thing over and over again? But now looking back, I know that it was important, and it’s important to do what you’re told. It’s paid off over the years.”

Carbone agreed.

“We were living in hotels right on the beach, and I was thinking ‘Wow this is great,’ but it wasn’t all fun and games,” he said. “We had to keep our rooms spotless. We had to do double-time runs, two or three blocks, go into the water up to our knees, get out and now feel loaded down with sand. We had to put our shoes back on and run back to the hotel with that awful feeling of our shoes full of sand.”

Carbone wanted to be a bombardier, and received training as such.

“They sent me to gunnery school and we all had to be trained in gunnery,” he said. “After all the training we finally had a meeting in the auditorium and they told us that all the future bombardiers were being shipped out as gunners, that there was a big need. Being a small guy, they decided to put us into B24 bombers at the ball turret that hangs at the bottom of the plane. That bomber can’t land until they pull you up like with an elevator. Otherwise, that plane can’t land without crushing you.”

Carbone flew with the rest of the gunners from Florida to South America to Africa, getting sidelined by a fire on the plane, and landing in Brazil.

“We stayed in Brazil for one week while they replaced the engine, and we lived like kings for one week,” Carbone said.

Giarrusso spoke of his time in Egypt seeing the pyramids and tombs and the city of Carthage, and of his living quarters.

“There was some good in the training, and in the travel and ability to see things while we were there,” Giarrusso said. “We were in a four-foot piece of canvas called a pup tent. We had two people per tent, so you sleep in half, I sleep in half, and we sleep head to toe, so if your head is in, my head is out. If your feet are in, my feet are out. That’s how short it was.”

Giarrusso went on to be stationed in Italy.

“We took over a school building there and we lived like kings,” he said. “There were 12 men and we lived in a classroom.”

He showed photos of a 16-ton airplane and pointed out the spot where Carbone would be in his space under the plane.

“If it landed on its belly, he’d be crushed,” Giarrusso said.

He became emotional as he showed a photo of a cemetery where many of his comrades were buried.

“Unfortunately there were ones that didn’t make it and they ended up in here,” he said as he held up the black and white picture.

Carbone spoke of a morning when he was laying on his cot in his tent in Italy.

“It was a nice day, there was warm weather and I heard the roar of planes. I looked up and saw a bunch of German planes and I thought we’d captured a lot already. The next thing I knew, there was fire coming out of them. They were striking us,” he said. “I was dumbfounded. The only thing I remember is throwing myself off the cot and onto the ground. By the time our air raid [sirens] went on, they were there and gone. It was the first time I realized that a guy could get killed over there. It was the first time I really realized we were in combat.”

Carbone flew 50 combat missions before going home. Very few flew as many.

“In that time we lost an awful lot of planes,” he said.

The missions were over Ploesti, Romania.

“We flew over an oil field where the Germans were getting their fuel from. It had to be destroyed at all costs,” he said. “Every time we flew a mission, 50 percent of four planes were lost. We knew that essentially this was a suicide mission, that 50 percent of us weren’t coming back. I flew three of those missions. I was lucky that I finished my 50 missions. The war was still going on, and very few reached 50 missions.”

Carbone was given leave and opted to go home by ship, having had his full taste of flying for a while.

“We made it home, but it was awful. We got attacked by German submarines … I flew 50 missions and here I am going to get killed on a ship,” he said. “I thought my ship was going to go down. We hit a really bad storm, many of the guys were sick, but luckily I was not.”

Carbone’s ship was greeted by a large crowd watching and clapping.

“We passed by the Statue of Liberty and everyone went to one side of the ship to see it. We thought the ship would lean to one side with all of us over there” he said.

Giarrusso took a moment to further clarify some of what Carbone’s job entailed.

“He’s really modest on what he actually did,” Giarrusso said. “The bottom ball turret is about the size of your table tops. He would lower himself into it, and close the plexiglass that was about three-eights of an inch thick. There was no protection at all. It was so small that his knees would be up under his chin and he was cramped with guns and ammunition all in there with him. And he did that 50 times.”

As the men closed their presentation, they reminded the audience to listen to their teachers and their elders.

“You might think, ‘Why are they hammering at us like that?’” Giarrusso said. “But you listen and when you get older you’ll realize why it’s important. You know, Tom Brokaw said that we were the generation, but really the greatest generation is forming right here, right now. You have technology that we never had, opening many, many doors than we ever had. The opportunities are here for you as young people. Take advantage of them.”

Both men were available following their presentation to answer questions and show additional photos and memorabilia from their World War II days. Carbone also showed souvenirs from the Honor Flight he took to Washington, D.C.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here