Branch of Service
U.S. Army
Hometown
Watertown, Massachusetts
Honored By
Joseph A. Franchina
Relationship
Self
European Theater of Operations: France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Normandy Invasion, Omaha Beach. Part of General Patton's Third Army, a half track mobile unit, the 449th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, Battery C, 5th Infantry Division, who lent support to the 10th and the 11th Regiments. Photo: Two very happy soldiers, taken on May 8, 1945, V-E Day, at the end of the war in Europe. Somewhere in Bavaria, Germany near the Czechoslovakian border. I was holding a bottle of cognac (commandeered months earlier while going through the city of Frankfurt. We hid in our half track just for that Special Day) giving the legs-up 'V' for Victory sign on that momentous occasion. My good old Army buddy, Edgar Kustanbauter of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, was giving the 'thumbs-up' sign.