The Army Grandpa: A Brief Biography

 

Mel with his sister Marilyn, who passed away in 2019.

"Mel" was born on June 10, 1919 in Tonawanda, New York. He had a younger brother named Vernon and a sister named Marilyn. He never moved more than a few streets away from the house he grew up in.

 According to Mel's draft card, he was 5'11" and 135 lbs in 1941. He had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. His ancestry was German. He was raised Catholic which is interesting because he married a Lutheran. He was 22 when he was drafted. Prior to entering the Service he was working as a stock boy for Remington (the typewriter company, not the firearms manufacturer)

 He was drafted into the Army on April 11, 1941 and was assigned to HQ Company, 28th Regiment of the 8th Infantry. During stateside training he participated in the Carolina, Tennesee and Arizona Maneuvers from 1941-1943. He was part of the Field Intelligence detachment for 2nd Battalion in HQ Company and worked his way up from Private to Staff Sergeant before his deployment. He landed with the 8th Division in Normandy at Utah Beach on July 4, 1944 and saw action in Normandy, Brest, Crozon Peninsula, Hurtgen Forest, Ruhr Pocket and the Rhineland. He was sent home on the points system in May 1945. He was honorably discharged on September 20 of that year. His Bronze Star medal citation says it was awarded on April 28, 1945 for 'meritorious service' but the reason was not given.

Mel purchased a small camera at Fort Jackson in 1941 and he immediately began taking pictures of himself and his friends, and daily life in the US Army. By the end of the war he had taken over 350 photographs. For a soldier in the infantry this is unheard of. The entirety of his rare & interesting collection is featured on a tribute instagram: @grandpas_army8thdiv 

 He was in very good health throughout his service, but he had the measles in boot camp the day the division photos were being taken. His name is listed under the Bronze Star recipients, but his photo was never taken on that day and as a result, his name was also omitted from HQ company in the 28th Regiment in the book. There is a family story from his wife's sister that he was wounded severely in the arm during the Battle of the Bulge, but the injury healed and he was sent back into the field. He either never collected or threw away his Purple Heart medal. He covered the scar on his arm and never spoke about it. Any medical records that could verify the story were probably lost in the fire at the NARA in 1973.

 After the war, Mel threw away his uniform, keeping only these photographs, his dog tag & Bronze Star medal in a box and a silk map of France and Germany. He was not proud of his Army service and did not attend a VFW, he went to one reunion and then never saw his Army buddies again. He also never went back to visit Europe. May 1945 was the last time he ever saw the continent he helped liberate.

Mel did not marry until 1950, when he met a wartime pen pal who lived in Delaware. He settled with his wife in New York and did not travel much except to Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey. Someone in my family told me he only had an 8th grade education and never went to high school or college, but that was not true. I found he had an MBA degree and his high school diploma. After the war he managed an art framing shop, and later a paint store until he retired in 1975. His skills were in charcoal drawing, painting, darkroom photography and amateur film making, and he was a skilled carpenter. He was a lifelong learner who read many books about American history and visited historic sites and museums. He enjoyed watching John Wayne westerns and war films and early science fiction movies like Flash Gordon, Metropolis and King Kong. He developed a heart condition in 1997 and passed away peacefully in his sleep on March 31st, 1999 at 80 years of age.  His photo legacy later inspired his grandson to become a World War II reenactor.