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WWII vet comes from family of Navy men

Editor’s note: This is part of a series published every Monday between Memorial Day and Veterans Day honoring local veterans.

LIBERTY — World War II was life-changing for Sam Delgenio.

During his three years of active duty, he got ”fixed up” with his future wife, learned a new trade that would come in handy and got to see most of the vast Pacific Ocean.

The Girard resident received his draft notice May 27, 1943, just days before he was supposed to graduate from Girard High School. He became one of four Delgenio brothers to serve in the U.S. Navy during the war.

“We were all Navy men,” Delgenio said about him and his brothers, Frank, John and Angelo, who are deceased.

Delgenio’s first stop was seven weeks of boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Station, Ill.

“I actually liked boot camp because there was a lot of exercising, and I don’t mind that,” said the still fit 92-year-old widower who takes care of his Liberty home.

After training, Delgenio was classified as a carpenter’s mate and was assigned to a mine sweeper that combed the west coast of the United States looking for possible explosives.

“We swept a lot of channels, and I got sea sick,” Delgenio said. “We were a bunch of teenagers and at the time we were losing the war on every front.”

When he was next assigned to the destroyer the USS Fox, Delgenio said he encountered a different Navy.

“I got aboard about 2 a.m. and the deck officer gave me a bunk. By the next morning, he assigned me a crew of five for damage control. Here we were, I was a kid of 19, a third class petty officer, and three of my men looked like they never saw a razor,” he said.

Delgenio said aboard the Fox, there was vigorous training almost every day.

“The ship had four smokestacks, and our battle station was next to one of them. We were given everything to save a ship, stuff like a car jack and lumber. And when you reported for duty you were expected to have a helmet and life jacket.”

All the time aboard the Fox, Delgenio said he didn’t see any action.

“We were mostly on submarine patrol and convoy duty, escorting some of the newer destroyers that were headed to Pearl Harbor,” he said.

By May of 1944, with the war going well for the Allies in Europe, Delgenio said, he was assigned to a vessel that was about 600 feet long.

“It looked like a cargo ship, and it looked like it could carry a lot of troops,” he said.

The vessel sailed to Shanghai, China, and then up the Yangtze River.

In the middle of his training in China, Delgenio learned the U.S. had dropped something called an atomic bomb.

“We heard that it killed 70,000 and then a few days later, they did it again and we were saying ‘what the heck are those guys doing?’,” he said.

After the war, Delgenio said he was assigned to Korea, Inchon Harbor, to help fix damaged ships, process the returning Japanese prisoners of war and assist with shore patrol.

Between assignments, Delgenio said, he got to spend some time in San Diego, meeting up with brothers Angelo and Frank.

“Angelo, who was assigned to the USS Wildman, had a fiance who worked at Strouss Department Store in downtown Youngstown and she had a co-worker, Florence Kathlene Dionisio, who said she wanted to meet me,” Delgenio said.

After their discharge from the Navy after the war, one of the first stops the brothers made was a luncheon date with the two girls.

“We were in our Navy outfits. I then used about $30 of my discharge pay to buy a new suit from Bud the tailor. The next Sunday I went to dinner at her house. I saw the wine bottle on the table and got a little nervous because I don’t drink. I pulled her into the next room, and that’s where I got my first kiss,” Delgenio said.

Before the next date, “she asked about my intentions, and I said I was going to marry her,” he said.

The couple was married for more than 60 years and Delgenio’s wife passed away in 2010.

Delgenio got a job with his brother Angelo at the U.S. Steel McDonald Works and toiled there over three decades. In addition, he started a woodworking business.

The veteran is still active in American Legion Post 235, where he has been a member for 67 years.

gvogrin@tribtoday.com

Sam Delgenio

AGE: 92

HOMETOWN: Liberty

OCCUPATION: U.S. Steel McDonald Works (38 years); woodworking business

SERVICE BRANCH: U.S. Navy

MEDALS: Victory Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Medal

FAMILY: Wife, Florence (deceased); son, John; and granddaughter, Janeen Reese.

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