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05/22/2017 08:40 AMBill Brody was just 22 years old when he arrived in Europe for the duration of World War II. Today, at 96, Bill readily retells his war stories as if they happened yesterday. On Monday, May 29, the Branford resident—one of a handful of America’s remaining World War II veterans—will be honored by his hometown as he leads the 2017 Memorial Day Parade as parade marshal.
The New York, New York native signed up to serve on Feb. 2, 1943. He trained at Camp Livingston, Louisiana, and was assigned to the 652nd Engineers.
“Suddenly, in mid-April 1943, I was sent to the Air Force 86th Squadron. In June, 1943, I was sent to the 44th. They had reached their shipping date and were short one man, so they took me,” says Bill.
Bill had been enlisted for just five months and 21 days when he shipped out for Great Britain on July 25, 1943. He spent the next two years, four months, and 15 days serving among several units at posts in England, France, and Germany. When the war was over, Bill returned home as a U.S. Army sergeant. He was honorably discharged at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on Dec. 14, 1945.
In describing his World War II deployment and service with several units, Bill slips back into Army slang, saying, “all the transfers might lead one to believe I was a GFU [“general foul up” is one way to spell it out]. Not so. It was the luck of the draw. In all the different units, I performed my duties as well as anybody.”
Bill can share dozens of recollections of World War II, from once serving so close to enemy lines that “we had to carry our rifles to the latrine,” to one of his last war stories, from August 1945. During the week he was set to ship out to the Pacific, “the A Bomb was dropped on Japan, and that was it,” he says.
Listening in as Bill shares his World War II memories, one can also quickly determine Bill and the notion of “regular Army” were often at odds. Those war stories paint a portrait of young man willing to get the job done, but not one fond of what Army slang termed “Mickey Mouse Rules”—petty rules, regulations, and red tape.
Still more of Bill’s stories reflect his bravery and humility. One demonstrates how he selflessly risked his life for others. It was 1944, shortly after D-Day. Bill’s squadron was stationed at an airbase in England, awaiting the capture of an airfield so they could set up operations. Bill pulled the night’s assignment as corporal of the guard.
“For the first time, I was corporal of the guard. I thought, at last, I would have an easy time!” says Bill.
That thought ended with the sound of an unidentified aircraft closing in. As it did, Bill got a call that a Quonset hut on the post—storing bombs, 50-caliber 20 mm shells and other assorted munitions—still had its lights ablaze, in blackout conditions.
“They were the only lights for miles and miles,” says Bill.
Bill hurried to the post and found its guard “standing around. I asked why he wasn’t trying to extinguish the lights,” he recounts.
The guard replied he didn’t have a key for the hut’s inner door. And, as Bill soon learned, the guard wasn’t interested in getting in there, saying, “if that turns out to be a German plane, there won’t be enough left of me to bury.”
Bill ran into the hut.
“I piled some ammo boxes on top of each other, scaled the wall, slid through the opening, dropped into the room and turned off the light switch,” he says.
Extinguishing the lights plunged “the entire countryside” into darkness, says Bill. Soon after, he says, the sound of the unidentified aircraft faded away and “the emergency was over.”
Bill wasn’t commended for the act because he never told anyone about it. Just this year, he made a written record of the incident, as well as another decoration-worthy act performed in the line of duty. Both descriptions been submitted to the proper authorities and, in about six months, Bill’s family will learn if he will receive decorations for them.
Other meritorious acts Bill performed in the line of duty were noticed, recorded, and rewarded. Bill’s sterling service is evidenced by the raft of decorations on his khaki dress uniform. One is a Meritorious Service Unit Plaque earned with the 7th Depot Supply Squadron. As the only supply squadron for heavily embattled P-47 fighter planess during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, the 7th kept props spinning and engines serviced. Bill keeps the February 1945 Air Force Command award description with his wonderful personal collection of World War II memorabilia. The award states the 7th’s support was critical in keeping P-47’s airborne at a point when the fleet was “at their lowest level in the history of the 9th Air Force, despite the fact that operational stress for tactical aircraft was at its peak.”
Bill’s World War II memorabilia collection also includes plenty of photos from his days in the service. There’s one of a Bill as a smiling, wavy-haired young man sitting on the wing of a fighter, balanced between the craft’s classic, cartoonish “nose art” and a slew of score-keeping “mission marks.” Another is a photo sent to him after the war, a copy of a picture Bill snapped in Europe for a newly married couple. It was sent to him by the photo’s nurse-turned-war bride, who wore a white wedding gown made from a silk parachute.
Bill says he’s always been proud of his service and loves his country. Bill and his wife, Harriet, raised two daughters. The couple will have several of their family members on hand to see Bill participate in Branford’s 2017 Memorial Day opening ceremonies on the Branford Town Green at 10 a.m. on May 29. The parade, with Bill at the lead, will immediately follow the ceremonies, stepping off on Main Street.
Even as he gratefully acknowledges and accepts the honor of being named Parade Marshal, Bill says he, like so many other men and women who served in World War II, was just doing his job.
“I didn’t care if I got a medal or not. I didn’t matter to me. We had to win the war. That was the whole thing,” says Bill.