Pearl Harbor: 73rd anniversary

Attack on U.S. spurred call to combat

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Vincent Curasi, of Wantagh, said that the two most important things in his life are his belief in God and in the American flag. Curasi, a Roman Catholic, attends Mass each morning at St. William the Abbot in Seaford, and always hangs a flag outside his home on Willow Street, where he has lived since 1954.

“I have an agreement I made with God when I was in the service,” the 89-year-old Curasi said. Although he wouldn’t divulge what that agreement entailed, he did say he knows that he will live to be 104. “My time in the Army taught me a few things,” he said.

Curasi, the son of Italian immigrants, is a World War II veteran who was stationed in Italy during the American occupation at the end of the war. He, like many boys of his generation, registered for the draft as soon as he turned 18. That was in 1943, two years after the U.S. entered the war, but it would be another two years before he was drafted. “I was waiting since Pearl Harbor,” he said, adding of the Japanese attack, “A real dirty deal. I was in a movie theater on Fordham Road in the Bronx, the RKO. I had this sickening feeling; it was horrible. My two older brothers immediately enlisted, but I had to wait.”

Curasi was rejected from service four times. “Every six months they called me down, and finally, on the fourth time, I told the doctor, no more physicals,” he said. “You take me now or I’m not coming back.”

He was drafted in early 1945, completed training in Macomb, Ga., and was sent back to Fort Dix to prepare to be shipped out. “I was supposed to go to Japan but my travel orders didn’t come through,” Curasi said. “The next boat was to Italy, and that’s where I went. We landed in Naples.”

The Allies had entered Naples in October 1943, and in April 1945, just as Curasi landed, Italian partisans up north captured and then hanged Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator. On May 2, German troops in Italy surrendered, and five days later there was an unconditional German surrender in Europe. The war in Europe was effectively over.

Private First Class Curasi was a member of the Infantry, 88th Division, and was a radioman in the mountains up north, transmitting Morse code. But soon enough the Army realized that his talents as a translator could be put to better use. “I spoke Italian,” he said. “Not many guys were like me, and they needed someone who could talk to people, see what was really going on.” He was assigned to the provost marshal in Trieste. “I said, ‘I’ll take the job, but don’t tell anyone I speak Italian.’ I wanted to really learn what was going on,” he said with a smile. “And boy, were they surprised,” he laughed.

“There was a lot of trouble there, after the war,” Curasi explained, referring to the rise of Communism in Italian cities up north as well as in what was then called Yugoslavia. “We had demonstration by the Communists who wanted to take over Trieste,” he said.

Curasi spoke about the rampant looting and black-marketing in Italy. He worked with 10 American soldiers as well as 12 local police officers. “I also had to go to houses of prostitution and talk to the girls,” he said. “I’d give them cigarettes, silk stockings, candy and they talked and talked. They’d tell me about the demonstrations, about the looting. I got a lot of good information.”

For the Italian people, these were desperate times. Once when he was inspecting ships in the Port of Trieste, Curasi recalled, he came upon an 8-year old boy, hidden in the hull of a ship. “‘I go to America’ — that’s what the boy told me,” he said. “He had a shovel and some cheese, bread and a bottle of water.” Curasi asked the boy about the shovel, and he replied, “I will dig up the gold in the streets of America.”

Curasi told him there was no gold in the streets, but the boy insisted. “I turned him over to the police to take him home,” Curasi said. “I don’t know what happened to the boy.”

After 18 months in Italy, Curasi returned home in December 1947. He married his sweetheart, Josephine, and moved to Wantagh. They had three boys — Vincent Bennett, a West Point graduate and a retired U.S. Army major; Dennis, a teacher; and Richard, who also served in the Army and now works for a military hospital, making prosthetics for soldiers.

Curasi was an active member of the Wantagh Auxiliary Police for many years, and remains an adviser. He is a 15-year member of the Wantagh American Legion. He was honored in 2002 with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Wantagh Chamber of Commerce, and has also received a recognition award from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Last year he was an honor flight recipient, brought with other World War II veterans to Washington, D.C.

“I am very honored to have served my country,” he said. “One thing I’d like to see, though, is more flag flying from more houses. This is a great country.”