A hero unrecognized

Vet says he never received WWII medals

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Every time Herman "Eli" Soblick, 92, of Franklin Square hears about World War II veterans being recognized for their heroic acts in battle, he wonders, where are his medals?

Soblick, an Army veteran, went to work in Brooklyn after his service, becoming a teacher and then assistant principal for 17 years at the New York School of Printing, which is now known as the High School of Graphic Communication. In 1955, he moved with his wife, Doris, to their Barrymore Road home in Franklin Square, where they raised a daughter. Doris died in 2013. 

Soblick said he believes he is owed three medals for his service: the Silver Star, the Soldier's Medal and the Congressional Medal of Honor.


He served as an infantryman in what was known as the Peleliu operation on the island of Angaur in the South Pacific in 1944. "The island of Anguar was one of the two Pacific Ocean islands where American soldiers had more casualties than the Japanese," he recalled. "The other island was Iwo Jima. The Peleliu operation was expected to be a four-day operation. Instead, it turned out to be a bloodbath that lasted two months."

Soblick was 20 at the time. He and his platoon, the Third Platoon of Company C of the 322nd Infantry Regimen, were ordered to patrol an area on the island known as the Angaur Bowl, an open field encircled by trees, caves and shrubbery. The mission was to determine where the enemy was set up, before exposing the company to enemy fire. 

"When we circled the bowl and headed toward a bulldozer trail," Soblick recounted, "that's when one of our two staff sergeants, who was bringing up the rear, was shot. He was a big man, and had a hard time [keeping] up the pace with the rest of us."

Three other men, including their medic on the patrol, managed to get the sergeant out of harm's way. But three other patrolmen were shot. Soblick happened to see a bulldozer operating at the edge of the bowl, and persuaded the driver to cover the men on patrol, using the scoop on the front of the bulldozer as a shield.

"If I didn't expose myself to enemy fire and get the bulldozer driver to cover us, all five men would have perished, and only God knows what would have happened to the rest of the patrol," Soblick said. "The following day, I looked down at my pant leg and saw a bullet hole. Had I not run in a zigzag up through the bulldozer trail to the bowl, one or more of the sniper's bullets would have hit me."

Another situation in which Soblick believes he earned a commendation unfolded during a patrol at Black Beach on the island of Angaur - where, he said, many men were lost.

"On patrol, we came upon two cliffs," he said. "When we stopped, a volunteer climbed to the top of one of the cliffs to see if there was anything. He did it, and didn't see anything. Then he asked me to search the second cliff. I started climbing up, and when I got to the top, I held on to a tree sticking out of the side of the cliff. When I laid against the tree, I looked down and saw an enemy soldier crawling on his stomach through brush, heading for the arsenal he had. I took my rifle off my shoulder and signaled for the men in my platoon to be quiet and spread out and take cover. I fired one shot and hit him." The Japanese soldier was only wounded, and to avoid capture, he killed himself with a hand grenade, Soblick said.

"If I hesitated to climb this cliff and the enemy soldier got to his arsenal before I shot him," he added, "our whole platoon would have been killed or wounded." 

Another time, Soblick tossed a live hand grenade out of a foxhole where he and two of his platoon members were seeking shelter  during battle. "I put myself at risk and threw the grenade out," he said. "Then I got a medic to take one man out, who was injured. As soon as we left for help, the other man in the foxhole with us had been injured. I found out later that the grenades were being tossed down from a tree above us. We all managed to get out of there, though we had injuries."

In 1945, Soblick was promoted to staff sergeant, but there was no other formal recognition of his heroism. He has since written to government leaders and to the family members of men he served with for help in getting the medals, but nothing has come of those efforts. Another obstacle, Soblick said, is time. 

"Most of the men I served with are dead now," he said. "I try to keep in contact with those who could help me, but my eyesight is failing and it's hard to use the computer to write emails and do research online."

He did manage to contact a granddaughter of a man he served with, Paul McAlister. The woman, Kimberly McAlister Stuckey, wrote that her grandfather remembered the incident, but not exactly who Soblick was.

Soblick has reached out to, among others, U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. "I figured, why not start at the top and see where it goes?" he said.

Gillibrand responded in January 2016, letting him know that she had received his paperwork. "In order to be of assistance, I have brought the information you presented to the attention of the appropriate officials at the Department of the Army," she wrote in a letter to Soblick. "I have requested a review of this matter and a written response from their office. As soon as I have something to report, I will contact you again."

Marisa Kaufman, a Schumer spokeswoman, said that his office has been in contact with Soblick, and is working with him on the case. 
 Soblick remains hopeful that he will receive his medals, and has few complaints about the way his life has turned out. "I'm a lucky guy," he said. "God has taken good care of me," he concluded, "in the war and in life."