From Philadelphia to the Battle of the Bulge: The Brief Life of Pvt. John-Lefty-Zagarella As Told In Letters, 1941-1945

By Pvt. John "Lefty" Zagarella

A compilation of compelling letters sent home during World War II by Private John "Lefty" Zagarella to his love, Jeanne Mascetti. John joined the 28th Infantry Division in 1941, married Jeanne during a furlough in 1943 and was
killed in fierce fighting during the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944. The war ended not long after. The book includes his letters,
photographs and drawings as well as the telegrams sent by the army telling his wife he was missing, then killed-in-action. Events that occurred during The War, personal and historic are chronicled and described in heartfelt
correspondence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483532431

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 Donna Borrelli Long

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

or used without the permission of the author.

Published by

Mixed Media Memoirs LLC

2802 W. Carrera Court

Green Bay, WI 54311

[e-mail]

Cover and book design by Jason Davis

from Philadelphia to the Battle of the Bulge:

The Brief Life of Pvt. John .Lefty. Zagarella

As Told In Letters, 1941-1945

Author Pvt. John Zagarella

Edited by Donna Borrelli Long

Printed in the United States of America

Publisher's Cataloging-In-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Zagarella, John, author.

From Philadelphia to the Battle of the Bulge: the brief life of Pvt. John.Lefty.Zagarella as told in letters, 1941-1945 / edited by Donna Borrelli Long.

pages : illustrations, map ; cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 978-1-4948-4853-8

eISBN: 9781483532431

1. Zagarella, John--Correspondence. 2. Soldiers--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Correspondence. 3. Soldiers--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Biography. 4. Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945--Personal narratives, American. 5. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American. 6. United States. Army. Infantry Division, 28th. I. Long, Donna Borrelli, 1950- editor. II. Title.

D811.Z34 A3 2014

940.54/8173

This book is dedicated to the brave soldiers of the U.S. Army 28th Infantry Division who fought across Western Europe in 1944, especially to those who lost their lives during the Battle of the Bulge, and to the loved ones they left behind.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Excerpt from For the Fallen by Lawrence Binyon

Foreword

I believe that in the coming years we are going to have the privilege of reading a new wave of World War II histories, and this book of letters is an indication of why. Given the millions of men and women who fought in World War II, letters written by only a relatively small number of soldiers have become available to the public so far. Most collections no doubt remain in the private hands of the descendants of World War II veterans. But I expect that over the next few decades more and more will be donated to historical archives, or better yet, scanned and posted on the Internet for all to read. Collections like this one, the letters of an infantryman, Private John J. Zagarella and his wife Jeanne Zagarella, show how these written sources will steadily enrich our understanding of the human side of the war.

Private Zagarella, like all men in rifle companies, did the dirty work of the war. Only a small portion of American fighting men served in the infantry, be they Army or Marines. Infantry during this war, witnessed events more closely than anyone else, and no one suffered more than did G.I.s. Shrapnel killed John Zagarella during the Battle of the Bulge, and with it a marriage was killed off. He left behind a loving wife he adored. These letters between him and his new wife are beautifully ordinary, and all of them together are moving in a way that I think each reader will experience in his own way. They make me thankful for what I have.

Read and give thanks.

Michael E. Weaver, Ph.D.

Author, Guard Wars: The 28th

Infantry Division in World War II

Montgomery, Alabama

January, 2014

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Letters

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography and Resources

Introduction

As I opened the door to Aunt Jeanne's tiny assisted living facility room (it's much too small and forlorn to be called an apartment), I could hear her mumbling to herself....... Lefty, Lefty, why? Why? My heart broke for her because I thought that all of a sudden she was agonizing over her first husband, Lefty, who had been killed in a battle during World War II so many years ago. I approached her, ready to offer words of solace when she turned towards me, smiled broadly and said, Donna, who's Lefty? I keep thinking about someone named Lefty, who is he? Why do I keep thinking about a fella named Lefty?

I was the one who burst into tears. There had been uncountable events and comments over the past several years that had saddened me, but this one was heart wrenching. Prior to the onset of dementia, Aunt Jeanne was renowned among family and friends for her fierce independence and stoic response to life's heartache and trauma. Dynamic and outspoken, she had learned to speak fluent Spanish and Italian, loved to travel, play cards, entertain and socialize with family and friends. She had been active in her Italian Club, participating in numerous functions over the years. Always proud of herself for her ability to help others, she now lacked the capability to perform even the most mundane daily living skills.

Well aware that she had lost her short term memory and basic conversational skills, I was stunned that she was unable to remember her high school sweetheart she had married before he went overseas during The War. As she continued smiling at me, I handed her the framed studio photograph that has always been propped up on her dresser, depicting Private John J. Zagarella, nicknamed Lefty, with his beautiful new wife and said, That's Lefty, Aunt Jeanne, this is your wedding picture. Smiling and chuckling a little, she pointed at the handsome, painfully young man in his army uniform, standing proudly next to his beautiful beaming bride, and said, That fella? That fella there is Lefty? She then became aware of my tears and said, Hey! What's wrong, why are you crying? Stop it! Well, he sure is good looking, isn't he?

Sniffling and taking a deep breath I agreed with her and looked again at the photograph taken on July 8, 1943. Jeanne was twenty and Lefty was twenty-two. He would never get much older; after their wedding, he had about another 17 months to live. Aunt Jeanne did get older. She is 90 now, coping with occasional debilitating arthritis, and though she vehemently denies it, increasing dementia.

Although she married again, seven years after the war to our beloved Uncle Vinnie, she never had children. Her nieces and nephews became surrogate sons and daughters as she devoted much of her life to helping us, her sisters' children. We knew all about Lefty, or thought we did, but really all we knew was that he had been killed in World War II.

I opened her closet door and unlocked her filing cabinets, protected with double locks as she just knew someone will break in here and steal all my stuff. Among the costume jewelry, matchbook cover collection, balls of twine (that was my mother's string! she would proudly proclaim, you never know when you might need some string!) and jars filled with buttons, pens, key chains, keys, thousands of paper clips and safety pins, I found what I was looking for: four huge manila envelopes, all simply labeled: Lefty.

Over the years she had shown me what she called her memorabilia several times, telling me to read the cards and letters, to save them and never ever throw anything out. The first envelope contained a scrapbook. Its brittle yellowing pages were filled with greeting cards: wedding cards, birthday, 1st year anniversary and Valentine's cards. Most were those she had received from Lefty during the time he was in the army, first in the United States and then overseas. Sadly the last cards in the collection were those expressing sympathy. Lefty had been a talented commercial artist in Philadelphia before joining the army. Included in the scrapbook were several drawings he had mailed to her, most with loving sentiments written in beautiful calligraphy.

When I opened the second envelope, dozens of black and white photographs spilled out onto the floor. They were pictures of Lefty and Jeanne and friends and family during pre-war and war years. I looked up at Aunt Jeanne, wanting to show them to her and ask her about them, but she had dozed off in her lift chair. As I looked through them, it was difficult to correlate the photos of the beautiful, well dressed, obviously happy young woman with the elderly infirm lady in the chair.

The other two envelopes contained letters, it seemed like hundreds of them, the majority from Lefty to Jeanne, but several were her posts to him. Most of his letters to her were signed Johnny. During the past several years, she and I had read a few together, and I remember asking her why he had signed most of the letters, Johnny instead of Lefty, as that is the name I always heard. Aunt Jeanne had smiled somewhat sheepishly when she told me that she had asked him to sign everything as Johnny, because Johnny rhymed with Jeanne, and we would always have the same initials. Her request showed just how young and in love she was. She had attached notes to several of his letters to her, writing read, save, beautiful but sad, and Destiny! I began to peruse the letters, some of which were those she had sent him while he was still based at camps stateside. He had saved them for her and were included in this collection. The other letters from Jeanne to Lefty were heartrending ones she had written to him in December, 1944 and January, 1945. He never answered any of those.

Since Lefty had been a prolific letter writer, Jeanne, her family and Lefty's family began to worry when the last letter they received was dated December 15, 1944. She and her sister sent v-mails and letters to Lefty until January 23, 1945, when the War Department telegram arrived, stating that he had been missing in action in Luxembourg since December 20, 1944. The family began to hope and pray that Lefty would be found soon, perhaps in a hospital somewhere, or that possibly he was well but had been taken prisoner.

It would be another eight weeks of anguish before the second telegram arrived, dated March 22, 1945. It stated that Private John J. Zagarella, previously reported missing in action was killed in action on twenty December, 1944. This telegram from Adjutant General Ulio also expressed sympathy and regret that unavoidable circumstances made necessary the unusual lapse of time in reporting your husband's death to you. All the letters she had mailed but he had never received were returned to her. There is something so profoundly sad about all those hopeful, returned letters and even sadder were the envelopes she had saved and attached; envelopes that had been dated and stamped, first the ones with Return to Sender: MISSING, 14 of them, and then 4 others with MISSING replace by DECEASED. Reading those missives with envelopes date-stamped months apart made her heartache palpable.

This compilation of letters, cards and v-mails describe the experiences of the young infantryman from Philadelphia beginning in February, 1941 when he joined the 28th Infantry, nicknamed the Keystone Division, as it had been formed from units of the Army National Guard of Pennsylvania, the Keystone State. During the War, based on the 28th Infantry Division's red keystone insignia and fierce combat encounters, the German forces gave it another moniker, the Bloody Bucket division.

In the bottom of the filing cabinet was a yearbook, The Historical and Pictorial Review of the 28th Infantry Division, Lefty's unit. It had been published in 1946, and depicts training in Great Britain and the route of the 28th when they left England, arrived at Omaha Beach in July, 1944, and reached Paris in August. Articles and photographs describe their exploits before and after the division marched down the Champs Elysees on their way to encounters with the enemy in the French countryside, the Hurtgen Forest in Germany, and then into the Ardennes region in Belgium and Luxembourg, where the 28th Infantry Division suffered severe attacks from nine enemy divisions in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge.

Lefty, aged 24, died near Wiltz, Luxembourg during one of the attacks. Growing up in the city of Philadelphia, Lefty had never even driven a car until army training but was a jeep driver in Headquarters Company during this battle. Inside the yearbook was another folder with messages of condolence from President Roosevelt, the mayor of Philadelphia, several Majors and the Adjutant General, along with the Purple Heart Medal and Certificate, and both telegrams from the War Department.

I never knew Lefty, but after reading his letters, I feel as though I know him very well. A son of Italian immigrants, he