World War II Honoree

Leo A. Geleta

Branch of Service

U.S. Army

Hometown

Cohoes, New York

Honored By

RMCS Michjael Lynett U.S. Navy (Ret)

Relationship

Fellow Veteran

Six months after Pearl Harbor he tried to enlist in the Marine Corps but was rejected because he was color-blind. Drafted into the Army Air Forces in 1943 he wound up in a fighter squadron’s ground control unit that shipped out to England in early 1944, arriving in France two months after D-Day. It was Dec. 16, 1944, the day German forces launched Adolf Hitler’s last-gasp offensive that would be known as the Battle of the Bulge. German commandos disguised in American uniforms were reported behind Allied lines, a ruse the Nazis employed to sow confusion and hold bridges for their advancing tanks. Stopped at a military checkpoint, Geleta was put on a truck and taken to a prison in Liege, where he and other American GIs traveling solo were being detained until it could be determined they weren’t Nazi agents. It was another five days before an officer from his unit arrived, verified Geleta’s identity and accompanied him back to their outfit. His enlistment ended in 1946.