1 100 1 https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/fe336bae96cc97cfa0165d570e85959d.pdf b2e53ced023770bf90b95602ffb809bc PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Astro Tortolano, August 31, 2003, San Jose, California INTERVIEWER: Today's date is August 31st, 2003; we are interviewing Astro “Al” Tortolano. On camera is ??Kirk Uchida??. On catalog and audio is ??Ross Federman??, and interviewing is Steven Wasserman. I want to first start by thanking you Al for coming out and being interviewed by us today. TORTOLANO: You're welcome. My pleasure. INTERVIEWER: Great. So now the first thing we're going to start with is we're gonna ask you to state your full name, your date of birth, and you know where you were born. TORTOLANO: Okay. My name is---Legal name Astro Tortolano, and I was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1921. But growing up I was always kidded about that Astro name, so we decided that my nickname would be Al. And Astro came from the fact at that time my dad was interested in astronomy and Astro pertains to the stars. But I couldn't live with that name, so I use it legally now on my legal papers and that. But everyone calls me Al so. And I was born and brought up in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Had two older brothers, a younger sister, and my dad, my mom, and my grandmother. We all lived in a tenement in Lawrence. I went to school in Lawrence. The first five years I went to school at the Storrow School up on Prospect Hill. And then the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades [00:02:01.26] was at the Rollins School up on Prospect Hill. And then I went to Lawrence High School for three years. I didn't graduate from high school because things were kind of tough, and I quit school to go to work. And I worked in---I got a job in a clothing factory and I worked in a clothing factory up until I went into the service. My mother and father were both woolen mill workers. And they used to work---In those days they worked six days a week, 72 hours a week, and they were makin' about $12 a week for wages. Things were kind of tough in those days. That was, you know, just before the big Depression and a---But we managed. My mother and father provided for us. We didn't have too much, but enough to get by on. We lived pretty good. And we were a close-knit family, always visiting with relatives and stuff. Never a Sunday went by without either we visited one of our relative’s homes or they were at our home. And they were really beautiful days to remember. I mean we were only kids at the time, but we used to enjoy listening to the older folks talk about the old country and stuff like that. It was nice. Let's see to take it from there most of our time was spent like summers we used to spend playing sandlot ball [00:04:01.28], baseball. Because we didn't have much in the way of equipment or things like that. But we used to have a lot of fun. We used to use baseballs that were taped maybe four times. The hide would split and we'd tape it. And gloves we used to swap gloves. I mean we never had enough gloves for two teams so---But it was enjoyable, I really liked it. And like I said I worked in a clothing factory from the time I was 16 until I went into the service which was about 21-years-old when I went into the service. And I was very active at the time with the clothing workers’ union, and I guess that about up until the service that was it, you know. INTERVIEWER: Okay, I was wondering can you tell me a little bit about your father, like his name and just what kind of person he was? TORTOLANO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 46 �Oh yeah, his name was ??Vincenzo?? Tortolano, and he came to this country I think it was about 1914. And my mother followed shortly after. They weren't married in the old country. They married here. But my dad was for an immigrant he went to school and learned the English language and reading and writing and stuff. Where he was pretty proficient at it. And like I said at first he was a mill worker, but then in later years I would say maybe [00:06:01.15] when I was about 10- or 11-years-old. Things were tough in the woolen mills. The pays were lousy. The people were treated lousy. So he became active with organizing the unions in Lawrence, Massachusetts. And from then until he passed, he got killed in an automobile accident when he was 59-years-old. But all that time he was a union organizer, always fighting for the working person. My mother worked at the mills, she was a homemaker, too. She put in the 12 hours at the mill. Come home and take care of us, but my father did send for his mother, my grandmother. She came her from Italy I think maybe in 1919 or somethin' like that. And that helped my mother a lot because she would take care of us during the day when my mother and father were workin'. And like I said they put in long hours in the mill, but we still found time to get together in the evening when they get home. And on weekends especially it was really great. It was really close-knit family, and we used to look forward to those get-togethers with our relatives. We'd have little songfests and stuff like that. Played little games like---Well they call it Bingo now, but we called it Beano then because you put beans on the numbers. It was fun. We did a lot of things where it didn't cost you any money. But I tell you I remember a lot of those lunches and dinners that we used to have [00:08:00.22]. Things were like---My father would bring home maybe two oranges and now with seven people at the table, he would peel the oranges and we would divide those slices of oranges evenly. Everybody got the same amount of orange or apple, whatever it was at the time. So and boy we looked forward to that. We thought hey this is great, you know. Cause we knew people who couldn't even afford the orange, so it was nostalgic. And my father was a strict man but very fair. I mean he was very strict but he was fair. And growing up in Lawrence was pretty tough, because they talk about the minorities now being looked down upon and stuff like that. But I tell you we---And that city it Italians, we were really looked down upon by the Irish in the city. Cause they were the dominant, they were like held all the city offices and stuff. And so we know what discrimination is. And the football field for the Lawrence High School used to be in the Irish area, and we used to have to cross one of their playgrounds to go to football games. And I would say during a season of maybe six or seven football games, we'd get into at least two or three fights to get into the stadium or to get back. Because they would always, "Here come those Wops from across the river”, and, “Here comes those Dagos”, you know. And everything at that time was segregated. The Italians were in one section [00:10:00.17], the French in another, the Polish, and the Irish, you know. And the Irish at that time looked down on all of 'em---Pollocks they called 'em, or Square Heads, or Frogs for the French. But we get in those little scrapes and I'd come home. My father would tell us, "Look, just avoid them. Try to avoid them, you know. If you know of another way to go to the stadium do it." And he always emphasized that never pick the fight. If says, "If you have to get in a fight fine, if you can avoid it, avoid it.” He says, “And just go to school and get yourself an education. Show them you're as good or better than they are." And that was his philosophy in life. Don't take any crap from anybody but don't give it either, you know. He was a pretty wise man. For an immigrant he was a pretty wise man. And my mother oh, she was like a---Hovering over us. Worrying about us, and I remember when I went to work we used to love to go dancing. I mean dancing was four or five nights a week. And oh my mother, "How can you go dancing till 1:00 in the morning. Get up at 8:00 and go to work. You’re gonna kill yourself." Oh I mean it was a---Ma we have to do it. It's the thing we do now. But I love dancing; oh we used to go four or five nights a week. It was the greatest. So---So that mostly is, you know, what I can think about. And my grandmother, God bless her, she couldn't speak a word of English [00:12:02.08] or very, very little. She never bothered to learn how to speak English, but she got around. And she was one of the most religious people that you can find. Every morning, 5:00 in the morning get up, went to church in the morning, rain, snow, sleet, anything. And she had to walk about, I'd say about eight or nine blocks to get This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 46 �to the church. But there was no way you could keep her away from that church. And she tried to instill that in us, but I wasn't that much of a church goer. I would go out on Sunday and sometimes I would go to church, but other times we’d hang out on the corner. The fellas would hang out at the corner. If we did go to church, after church we'd hang out at the corner. And in the Italian district there, all of Massachusetts actually, nothing opened on Sunday until 1:00. So if you wanted to have a little coffee laced with some Sambuca or somethin' you'd have to go to the Italian little neighborhood stores in the backroom. You could go through the alley and go in the backroom for a dime or fifteen cents you could have a cup of coffee with a little Sambuca. And then we'd just spend an hour or two yackin', you know, like guys would at the time. But then 1:00 in the afternoon we'd have to be home come hell or high water. One o'clock you were home for what we called dinner at the time so. And that's about it growing up in Lawrence. I don't know what else. INTERVIEWER: Wow, no that's great. I was actually going to ask you a little bit about your mother as well. What was her name and what was she like in terms of her personality and you know her appearance? TORTOLANO: Oh, my mother's name was ??Judita?? [00:14:01.18] and her maiden names was Falese, F-a-l-e-s-e. And she was a fun person. She was the type she was very active with the ladies club and stuff like that with the little time that she had. She was active with the clubs. And like I said she looked over us like a mother hen, you know. And everything---You couldn't leave the house if you had a spot on your pants. No, take them off, I'll wash 'em. So she was that type of person. And she tried to be strict with us too, but with mom we could get away with a lot more than with dad. And I used to remember we'd do somethin' wrong, you know, and my mother would come after us. And we would hide under the bed. She'd be standin' there with a broom, and she'd said well come out son. In Italian they say figlio, come out. No you're gonna hit me. No, no, I won't touch you. You come out, says come on. The minute we stick our head out from under the bed, wham [Laughs]. But it was---It's funny now but at that time mom you know you're gettin' too strict with us here. She always said just say no figlio [Inaudible] beautiful child they’d call it. She says we're not strict enough, she says you go out too much. You fool around too much, says you're not home enough. But she's a beautiful woman and really nice lookin'. My father was a handsome, handsome man, and my mother was beautiful. If you see 'em in the tapes that we made. They were really beautiful people. And like I said I have two older brothers [00:16:02.06]. One of them, my brother Jim, he was the oldest brother. He worked in the woolen mills for quite some time. And my other brother Tut, Arno is his real name. We call him Tut. He worked as a musician. He was a professional musician so he traveled quite a bit. And then I had a younger sister named Nancy, who went to school and to college. When she got through school she got married and grew up and had children, had one child actually. But my brothers are both gone. They both passed away. They both served in the Army. My oldest brother Jim was in the Army in Europe. And he was attached to our division. And so I used to see him pretty often either in combat or when we'd get pulled back for leave. I'd see him quite a bit. And my other brother Arno he was stationed in the states. And before he got shipped overseas he was in a real bad jeep accident and he was unconscious. We almost lost him from what I understand. I was overseas at the time, but from what I found out later that he was unconscious for about seven days and it was nip and tuck as to whether he would live or not. But he came out of it alright, but he was a little---Memory was impaired somewhat. But he was a musician and he still---The first thing he did they said when he came out of it was where's my guitar? That's the first thing he said [00:18:02.04]. And he started playin' the guitar again and started right off where he left off. But he passed away I think about five years ago. He was livin' in Arizona and he passed away about five years ago. So there are just now myself in the regular family there’s myself and my sister who is living in Massachusetts now. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 46 �INTERVIEWER: Oh great. I'm actually going to ask you a little bit more about your siblings. Now how many years apart were you each? TORTOLANO: Two years, all two years apart. I think my oldest brother was born in 1917, and my other brother was born in 1919, I was born in 1923, and my sister was born in 1925, so we're all two years apart. INTERVIEWER: So when you guys were little were you pretty close? TORTOLANO: Oh yeah. Yeah. We used to---We had to be close. We lived in a tenement house, seven people, my grandmother and sister slept in one room, my mother and father had their own room, and three boys sleepin' in one bed. So we were close. And me being the youngest there are a lot of times if we're sleepin' head to head and things got a little rough, they'd shove me down and I would have to sleep, you know, with my head down by their feet. It was---In a way it was fun, you know. And in a way sometimes you get---But no, we were real close. We used to go dancing same dances together. We used to go on dates together, and my older brother kind of drifted off more or less with the older guys, you know [00:20:02.08]. But myself and the next brother, the one a little older than myself, he was a con artist. I mean he was---He used to con me to no end. He was the only one of the fellas that had a car. He had a old broken down Studebaker, it ran you know. And it’d get him where he wanted to go. But every once in a while he'd say, "Hey Al, you wanna to use my car tonight", you know. I said, "Oh yeah, man I'll use it." He says, "Well I’ll tell you it's got a flat so fix the flat and you can use it." So I'd be down there fixin' the flat in those days with the tube, pull 'em off and patch the tube. In the meantime he's upstairs gettin' dressed. I'd get through with the car, you know, and I’d say okay I’ll go up and wash up. I'd go up and no sooner I walk in the door he said, "Oh Al, I just remembered you can't have the car tonight, I have a date. I can't break it." He did that to me so many times. I knew it was comin', but once in a while though I'd get the car. He'd let me use the car. But it was that kind of interplay with us. I knew what was comin', but hey we were brothers. What are you gonna do, you know. But I did get to use the car quite a bit. And dancer he was a fabulous dancer, jitterbug, you know. He used to win a lot of jitterbug contests, and a good looking guy. Man he used to---He could make out with more women. And I used to hang out with him and say, “Hey Tut, what you don't want I'm here [Laughs].” But like I say we used to have a lot of fun, go to dances together. And like on the corner we wouldn't hang out together because he had his [00:22:01.02] group of fellows, my older brother had his group, and I had the group with the younger guys. And a---But dances we get together go to dances. My sister when she was old enough, my father would only let her got to dance if I took her or one of us took her, you know. So we used to take her dancing with us. Sometimes she wanted to go on a date; my father didn't want her out because at the time she was only now 16- and 17-years-old. And in those days you don't go datin' a woman or a young girl doesn't go on dates alone. So I'd say, "Well Pa, I'm gonna take her to the dance with me tonight", you know. So we'd leave the house and I'd take her to meet the boyfriend. And I'd say okay guys I know where you're goin', but I want you here at a certain time and I'll pick you up at 10:00 and we'll go home. So I used to sneak her out on dates now and then, you know. And that's the kind of way we grew up. And we're still close. My sister and I talk on the phone at least a couple of times a month, you know. And I go visit every two years I go visit her in Massachusetts. So it's a---That's the way we were growing up with the siblings. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 46 �INTERVIEWER: Great. Now I know you mentioned your grandmother and the fact that she didn't really learn English. How did you communicate in the family in terms of you know language? TORTOLANO: Oh we spoke Italian at the time. All the children we learned Italian. And I spoke pretty good Italian up until I got out of the service. And when I married my wife she was Lebanese. So consequently we didn't speak it when [00:24:01.03], you know we moved out of the house. Well when we got married I moved in her house because her mother was very ill. And she used to take care of the mother and she was like the mother in the family. Her mother had a bad heart for years. But---So after that I had no one to speak Italian with, and I lost a lot of Italian. Like now I know very little Italian. I knew enough when I---I can communicate a little bit, you know, if they talk slow enough I can---But in those days yeah, we all spoke Italian so we could communicate with my grandmother. My grandmother was a wonderful woman, too. She kind of minded her own business. She never tried disciplining us, you know. Whatever my mother or father said that would be. Even like when they went to work and we'd be home with her, the discipline was the same thing that we would get from our parents. So there was never a conflict of interest or discipline with my grandmother. And like I said she spent all her time either in church in the morning, or crocheting, or stuff like that at home, cooking, you know doing the cooking at home. So that's the kind of family we have. INTERVIEWER: So did you actually---I know you learned Italian was it only at home or did you go other places to learn Italian? TORTOLANO: No, no, it was only at home. INTERVIEWER: Okay. TORTOLANO: From our parents. But the only time my folks wanted us to speak Italian was to my grandmother. Because they wanted to learn English better than what they knew [00:26:02.03] because they wanted to go for their citizenship papers, you know. And then they did both become citizens, so with my mother and father we always spoke English. With my grandmother it was Italian. And then there would be a lot of Italian spoken when my relatives came over because they were also immigrants. But they too would try to speak a lot of English. But at get-togethers it was all Italian, so naturally we'd pick up quite a bit from them, too, so. And yeah, that's about the extent of the Italian that I knew. INTERVIEWER: Great. So you were mentioning your grandmother cooking. What was the food like in the house when you were growing up and the kind of things that your grandmother or mother would make? TORTOLANO: Oh man, most of it was sauces you know for macaroni and spaghetti. Because that was the cheapest, but soups, minestrone soup, a lot of soups. On rare occasions we'd have some steak or something, you know, but most of---Like the Sunday dinners especially, you started off with soup. You have to have the soup. Then you have to have the chicken, and then you have to have the spaghetti and meatballs and stuff, you This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 46 �know. And then for dessert like I said, we'd share either oranges or apples, or stuff like that. And most of it was lasagnas, eggplants; you know they'd make dishes with eggplant. They'd use whatever vegetables they had to make a meal out of it. We never lacked for food though. They always made sure we had plenty of food, enough food [00:28:01.25]. And after the one thing I admired about my folks, at first I thought well you're being a little---I don't know how to put it but I know a lot of people---We used to have bread lines in those days. And I remember people going to the Everett Mill and they'd be lined up for blocks, and they would get staples, you know, from the city. I guess it was the city that would paid for it---My mother and father for some reason were too proud to stand in line so they found other ways to make sure that we had enough food. Because they always worked. They always went to work, and it wasn't much money but they always went to work. And I admired them for that, you know, I thought at first you should have gone and gotten the food. But after, you know when I think about it I have to admire the fact no, we'll make it and leave it for someone that has less than us. So I loved 'em for that. INTERVIEWER: Great [00:29:20.01]. BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO TORTOLANO: They used to do like pantomime, you know. They would put on a recording of like some opera singers, and they would dress up in clothes. And they would just mouth the words, you know. The record would be playin' and they'd mouth the words and go through all crazy gyrations. Or Spike Jones themes they used to do, but then that was just like a little show, maybe a half hour or hour. Cause they used to play like four hour gigs like you know wherever they were playin. And they would play real good dance music and listening music, but then they would throw in this half hour of pantomime. They were pretty good at it and they traveled all over, Chicago, and New York, and places like that. Yeah, he loved it. He was a musician to the end so--- But like I said after the service---I mean when he went into the service he came out of it. He still played, but it just wasn't the same for him anymore, you know. The trio had broken up and he used to try to form different groups. And he still loved it. He still played a lot of music, but then he retired and went to Arizona to live with his daughter. And I think he had a little touch of Alzheimer’s because the last few years I went to visit him about the year before he passed away. And I brought him to California to stay with me for about a month, and I noticed he was losing it, you know. And then he passed away. I don't know whether it was his heart, I don't know what it was. He passed away, but he went happy [00:02:05.27], from what his daughter told me he was reliving his old days, you know, his music days and stuff, and his dancing days. My older brother took up violin for a while, but I think it was because my dad pushed him. Because my dad used to sing in amateur opera---Had a hell of a voice, very good voice. So the family was musically inclined, and I started takin' up the bass at one time, but I'd be up there, you know, and I'd look down and everybody's out there dancing having a good time. And I'm up there and watching them. I said no, that's not for me. I belong down there not up here. I gave up playin' the bass and then just stuck with goin' out dancing and having a good time and enjoying myself. That's about as part of the musical, but my dad had a hell of a voice, oh he---Too bad in those days nobody thought of, you know. We didn't have tapes so they weren't recording any. We didn't have anything to record 'em on so---But I was only a kid, but we'd go see some of those operas they put on and he was good. Son of a gun was good. Had a talented family. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, great. Now when you were playing bass did you actually play with your brother or--This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 46 �TORTOLANO: No. No. This guy that was teaching me, he played at a place called the Capri [00:04:00.10], and he would let me sit in. Like he was teaching me bass then every once in a while when the crowd wasn't too big, you know. When we had like a small crowd and they figured then I would sit in, relieve the other bass player and sit in with 'em for a while, you know. Cause I wasn't that good at it at the time. If I stuck with it I imagine I could have became pretty good, you know. But like I said I'd get up there and then I didn't like sitting there and reading music. I wanted to just pick up that bass and start playin' it and he said no. You don't do that. If you want me to teach you, you read music, I'll teach you do, re, mi, fa, so, and all that stuff and got kind of dry for me, you know. Cause like my brother, my brother didn't read a note of music. He played by ear. But the guy was so good, and I thought well maybe that's what I want to do. I don't want to you know go to a teacher and learn. Show me the different positions and stuff, but he wouldn't teach me that way. So I tried learning reading, but I gave it up. It wasn't for me. INTERVIEWER: So what kind of music were you learning to play? TORTOLANO: Swing. Swing music. Because in those days everything was Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, you know, and it was all swing music. Jitterbug and that was it, yeah. That's the kind of music I grew up with and the kind of music I love. And even today, but today where can you go to listen to that kind of music. They just don't have it anymore. Everything is reggae, rock 'n roll, and stuff like that, and I don't dig that stuff. So around here there is no place to go to listen to jazz [00:06:01.00]. INTERVIEWER: So I was gonna say so you know you were playing it for a while and you know your brother also was playing jazz. Did you guys have any favorite you know bands? TORTOLANO: Oh yeah, now my favorite band was Benny Goodman. My older brother was Artie Shaw. We would have more arguments on who was the better clarinet player and oh Shaw makes him look this, and I would say no, no, Benny Goodman has better technic. And actually it was just a matter of who you liked, but my other brother that played music he never argued about it. He just says oh you guys like who you like he says and I go on playin' mindin' my own business as far as music goes. But my older brother and I even when we came out here cause my brother moved out here before I did. And we had a friend here, ??Chuck Travis?? who used to play with Jimmy Dorsey. He was a saxophone player, and I met him here in California in one of the clubs. And we're in a conversation, I'm tellin' him about how much I admire his saxophone playing, and that my brother was a musician, and a lot of good musicians came out of Lawrence, Massachusetts. And then he turned around and said, "You wouldn't happen to know a guy named ??Tony Pachati?? that played trumpet would you?" I said, "Hell yeah, he played with my brother Tut." And oh we became steadfast friends from then on. Cause like I knew this ??Tony Pachati??, and this ??Tony Pachati?? played with him with the Jimmy Dorsey Band. So I mean it started coming together it beginning to be a small world. And but still we’d sit around talkin' about the music and musicians and stuff [00:08:05.12]. And my brother would still, but yeah Benny Goodman couldn't hold a candle to Artie Shaw and this and that. So I asked my good friend Chuck, I says Chuck, "Tell him who the better clarinet player was", you know. He'd say, "Well, you know I'm not gonna get into this." He says I'm gonna tell you who was the biggest louse and that was Benny Goodman. Oh he said Benny Goodman treated his musicians lousy. So that part I didn't know. All I know is I liked his music, I liked the band, you know. But from what I heard and even read later, yeah Benny Goodman was a strict task This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 46 �master, and guys used to leave his band. They couldn't stand playin' for him. And then Artie Shaw well he became a writer and stuff like that. He gave up music, but he was the band I’d say is better than Goodman's. And he played better music than Goodman played. But I was still a Goodman fan. INTERVIEWER: That’s great. Alright. I know you were really into dancing. Can you talk about the type of dancing and where you guys would go? TORTOLANO: Oh yeah, we used to go all ballroom dancing. We used to go to in Lowell we'd go to the, what the heck ballroom was---Commodore Ballroom in Lowell. We used to go to the Pla Mor Ballroom in Boston. There was a---I can't remember the name of the---They’d call it the twin ballrooms, and they always used to have two good bands there. And they were connected by a little underground walkway. And you could go from one ballroom to the---One admission but you could go Raymor and Pla Mor, that was the name of it. And you could go from one ballroom to the other and listen to two different bands. One would be a real good name band, the other one would be like a local band a little lesser known. But if one was too crowded you could go over to the other one. And then we used to go dancin' up in New Hampshire quite a bit because we used to love to go to Manchester, New Hampshire because we used to call it a hick town. Because New Hampshire was more or less farms and stuff like that, and we thought we were a little more sophisticated than them when it came to dancing and stuff. And actually we were better dancers than the fellas up there. So naturally when we went up to their ballroom, oh forget it. We were like kings, you know. All the girls wanted to dance with the better dancers and that was us, the guys from Lawrence. And see in retrospect the dancers from Boston used to make us look sick. Because for some reason they used to do better steps than we did, you know. So they thought we were hicks when it came to dancin', and we thought the ones in New Hampshire were hicks. And so we'd go up there because we could make out with these young ladies better than the guys there that lived there, you know. So it was fun. We'd have a lot of fun. We didn't have the money at the time. We'd used to have to pitch in for gas. Five or six guys would get together and we'd meet at the pool room on Saturday afternoon or whatever time we were goin', you know. Pitch in a quarter a piece for gas. Put the gas in the car and go to New Hampshire or wherever we were goin'. Not everybody had a [00:12:04.05] car. So the guy that had the car was like the king and maybe one or two guys if he saw things were desperate, he'd try to get an extra dime out of ‘ya for gas, you know 35 cents instead of the usual quarter. And we'd pay it and we'd go home and we'd enjoy it. The only drawback with that is if the driver, the owner of the car happened to make out with one of the girls at the dance and maybe wanna take her home---Five guys would be stuck in the coffee shop and the dance would get over about midnight. And we'd go to the coffee shop and we're waitin' for him and sometimes you're out there till 2:00 in the morning waitin' for him. It was either that or thumb a ride home which we did a lot of times, you know. That's what I used to do when I would go dancing, I'd go in the bumming corner and if I pick up a ride fine, if not when we get through with the day fine come by and that's where I'll be. So that's what we used to do, either wait for them in the coffee shop or---But I tell you they used to be pretty good. If one of us picked up a girl and we take her home or somethin' they would wait for us. They'd say okay we'll go in and have coffee, but be back here by 1:30 or whatever time we set. And you better be back there by that time otherwise off to Lawrence he went, and then you're on the bumming corner by yourself trying to get a ride to Lawrence, which was only eight miles away, nine miles away, but things worked out. I mean everything worked out pretty good. We enjoyed it---We knew who to go with. Who not to go with. One guy this Castro had a car and the one time we pitch in our quarter for gas and we were going dancing in Lowell that night [00:14:03.11], get half way to Lowell he pulled off the highway and he says okay fellas he says, “I'm broke, I don't have enough money to go into the dance.” He says, “Now you either walk from here or you pitch in and pay This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 46 �for my dance”, you know. Well dance at that time was only 99 cents to get into the ballroom. But even those days 99 cents, five of us we'd have to put in 20 cents apiece for him to get in the dance, you know. And we never knew if he had money or not, but well like I said highway robbery. He'd pull off and you either walk to the dance or pitch in so we pitch it in there. So after that happened once we'd say okay before we left the poolroom, you got enough money for the dance otherwise we go with this other guy. But we used to have fun. You know if you tell people that, yeah we knew things like that would happen. And it was part of growin' up. And the gang on the corner we were close. Everybody looked out for one another. We're all Italian. We had just two Irish guys who used to hang out with us, and even though we couldn't get along with the other Irish they lived in our area and we used to get along with them real good---Two brothers. And one--INTERVIEWER: Can you hold on a second it seems like there’s a little bit of noise. Okay it was just some extra noise out there. So you were talking about these two brothers. What were their names and--- [00:16:00.28] TORTOLANO: Oh, ??Tubber??, one we used to call ??Tubber””. I can't remember the other brother's name. What the heck was their last name. It wasn't ??O'Brien??. It's somethin almost like ??O'Brien??, but it wasn't. But, what the heck? ??Kennedy, Tubber Kennedy??, and I don't remember his brother's name. But the older brother was a real nice guy. He'd go dancing with us and everything, but this ??Tubber Kennedy?? when he drank forget it. He used to get us in more fights and like we'd go to Lowell. We'd always carry our own little bottle with us just because we couldn't afford to go drink, you know in a joint and then go to the dance. So we'd always have a little half-pint and sneak it into the dance with us. But inevitably he'd get---Once he'd get a few drinks in him he'd get belligerent and he'd start a fight and we used to have to bail him out. And it finally got to the point we got sick and tired of bailing him out and we actually barred him from comin' to the corner. He couldn't hang around with us anymore. He was an outcast as far as he was concerned. Hey he couldn't sit---Like we used to go to this little joint and we'd hang out in Lawrence, Mel's Lounge. After about an hour he'd be pickin' a fight with one of us, you know after drinkin'. He'd even pick a fight with one of us. So I says no, they finally said no, "??Tubber??, you're not welcome in our area anymore. Your brother fine, you no." So those are the only---Other than that there were only Italians that hang out together [00:18:01.13]. And we used to hang around this corner on the corner of Lawrence and Essex Street. And we used to hang out at this place called the Tiger Club, it was just a little whole in the wall but at nights we’d go and have a few drinks there. And on the summer nights we'd be out on that corner, there'd be eight, nine, 10 guys, you know yacking. Come about 11:00 though this old copper would come around. We'd call him Rubber Legs cause he's big and couldn't run worth a damn, you know. But he'd come and he'd say look, it's 11:00, I'm making my rounds and he'd go up Essex Street, down to Lawrence Street, come around the corner and he says you know it takes me about 20 minutes to make that round. He says in 20 minutes I don't want to see a sole on this corner. He says, "Go home." So most of the guys would go home, but maybe sometimes two or three of us would hang around. He'd come, "What did I tell ya? I want you home." He'd take out the billy club. We'd take down off Essex Street. We knew he couldn't catch us, but that's why we called him Rubber Legs, you know. He'd chase us for about a half-a-block and we'd go home. Next night would be the same thing, you know. It was like a routine, but it was fun growin’ up on the corner. Like I said we were close. You think for eight, or nine, or ten guys that hang around the corner you know there'd be a---I mean we used to have our friendly arguments, most of them about who was the better dancer, or who could make out with a girl, you know, quicker than another guy, or stuff like that. Just a little guy talk arguments [00:20:04.25]. It was fun. Dress forget it. You dressed like---We never went anywhere without a coat, tie, you know. And that's another thing, competition. Who could out dress the next guy with our zoot This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 46 �suits and stuff like that. But when I think about it and I see the way guys go dancing today, I look at 'em and no, I'll take the old days. I mean it was a little uncomfortable at times in the hall it was hot, but when you looked around and saw all these guys dressed up. And the girls all dressed up, never go to dance and stuff without their hats, you know, beautiful hats and stuff---Take 'em off in the dance hall, but I mean we were always dressed, right to the T. Always with the latest fashions. I don't know how we did it but we managed. I remember I saw a sport coat in the window one time. I loved it. I fell in love with that thing I said I got to have it. I mean it was only $12 but in those days I didn't have the $12. But all those stores you could go in, I need that coat, I want that coat. I need it for tonight. Give them $1.00 down and 50 cents a week until you paid it off. That would do it. I had to have that sports coat, man I was like the king. But I mean that's the way we used to buy our clothes. Everything was $1.00 down or $1.00 a week or 50 cents a week. They know we were good for it, you know. They knew where we lived and all that, and that's how we used to get clothing and stuff so. And everybody did it [00:22:03.18]. Everybody wow, hey man you look sharp in that. Where'd you get it. How much did you pay for it, you know. Like I said we tried to outdo one another with clothing, dancing, we were competitive, but friendly competitor, you know. And it was nice. And one thing though we never stepped on anyone's toes. If some guy was going out with a girl, even though it wasn't a steady thing, you never, never muscled in on his territory. I don't care what he told us about the girl---Like she's a player or whatever, you never went behind his back to try to date her. If and when we’d say hey let me know whenever you're not going to date her no more or you know, let me know first I want next. And like I said as competitive as we were we never, never stepped on anyone's toes. Like even at dances, if there was a girl there that was like a real good dancer, the first guy to dance with her, he says hey, I'm going to try and make out with her. Leave her alone. We wouldn't dance with her. We'd leave her alone for that night and see if he could make out. If not, the next night then we'd try, you know. So it was that kind of growing up with us. INTERVIEWER: So what were some of the names of the guys that you knew? TORTOLANO: We all had nicknames. Nobody was called by his real name. We had ??Moosey Mouse??. He's a guy, now if you think I had a nose. Here's a guy and he really had a honker. and we called him ??Moosey Mouse??. His younger brother was called ??Gymo??. Another one was called D.P. for Dead Pants because he had no butt at all and his pants [00:24:04.26] used to hang loose. And like I said that ??Tubber Kennedy??. ??Melo??, it was never ??Carmelo??, it was always ??Melo??. And it was all names like that. We never had---Very seldom called anybody by their first name. Like I said with me, Astro, there is no way you can cut that name short. You know without---So but in those days Al actually they didn't call me Al until we came out in California. In those days we were known as the Tut Brothers. They used to call us Tut, short for Tortolano. And it used to be Jimmy Tut who was the oldest. King Tut was the middle guy, and then I was Baby Tut. So we'd go to a dance if the three of us go to a dance somebody would call hey Tut, three heads would turn, you know. And they would say no I mean either Baby Tut, or King Tut, or Jimmy Tut, you know. And that's what we were known as the Tut Brothers in those days. And they used to have to have you seen Tut lately, which one? So they'd have to either Baby Tut, King Tut---King Tut was known as King Tut because like I say he was a musician, he used to make out like crazy with the ladies. So we called him the King. INTERVIEWER: Great. So you were mentioning so a lot of these guys were from the neighborhood, right? TORTOLANO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 46 �Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So what was then the makeup of your neighborhood ethnically? Mainly Italian or--TORTOLANO: All Italian in that neighborhood. I'd say for oh man, from [00:26:01.16] Avril Street where I lived [00:26:04.25] all the way to Essex Street. Then from Union Street up till about Jackson Street---I'd say a good five square blocks, all Italian---I mean almost strictly Italian. And then like Tower Hill, it was all French. Prospect Hill was a mixture of German, what else up there, German, Polish, and some French. But our---In our downtown area strictly Italian. I'm gonna have to take a drink. INTERVIEWER: Okay, yeah [00:26:45.11]. BEGINNING OF TAPE THREE INTERVIEWER: So we were just talking about actually the neighborhood that you grew up in, and you know how it was mainly Italian. What was it like in the schools that you went to? TORTOLANO: Well in the schools like I said being Italian we were kind of looked down upon even in the school. And we always had to---Like at recess and stuff Italians would always have to stick together because we couldn’t for some reason they just didn't wanna integrate with us, you know. We were like I said, we were the Wops and the Degos, and they didn't realize their folks came from Europe, too, you know. They weren't all born here. You know their folks weren't all born here. And girls, if they weren't of an ethnic---You know like if they were English or Irish or somethin' we couldn't get a date with them, you know. The only dates we got with like our own, Italians or the Polish, you know, the French girls. Like later on my wife was Lebanese. Now we get along with them. Now all the other groups we get along with one another. The only ones we couldn't get along with was the ones from South Lawrence, the Irish people in South Lawrence. So growin' up in school wasn't the greatest because like I said I went to school, I was born in downtown Lawrence in the Italian district. But when I was about five, almost six-years-old we moved up from Prospect Hill. And I went to grade school there the first five years, school there. And that wasn't too bad [00:02:00.26], but then when we got in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in the Rollins School we were more or less with the Irish and stuff like that. And it was more segregated. Like I said we'd have to stick together, the Italians we’d all stick together, otherwise forget it---We couldn't---We were never involved in anything like school clubs like when we started goin' to high school. They didn't invite us into any of their clubs or anything like that. So we just stuck together and hung out together. INTERVIEWER: So when you were in like in either junior high or high school, what kind of activities were you involved in if they didn't allow you into clubs? TORTOLANO: Really nothing, all we’d do is play baseball and stuff like that sandlot ball---And like hang out on the corners with the guys in the evening, after school, before dinner we'd hang out on the corner. And then This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 46 �maybe after dinner for about an hour, but it was always with our own group. Now Prospect Hill wasn't too bad, goin' to school there in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. There were a few guys like ??Jerry O'Brien?? and that used to hang out with us on the corner. And he was like one of us. The way we used to say yeah he don't mind hangin' out with the Wops and Degos, you know. So he's alright. Jerry's okay. He's a good Irishman, you know. But like I said the girls it was a little tougher. Either their parents were tellin' them you gonna have nothin' to do with [00:04:03.01] the Italians or---Because I'm sure it wasn't their choice because you only, you know, if you're growin' up you only grow up knowing your---Living the way your parents want you to. So we never blamed them, we always blamed the parents. So we figure well we're not good enough for their daughter, so we just forget 'em leave 'em alone. But that's the way it was growin' up in school. Even sometimes the teachers, you know, they have their pets and favorites at school. We were never any of their favorites or pets, so we were always you didn't do your homework you get punished. One of the others didn't do it, well okay now but you make that up. With us it was never make it up. It was always you stay after school and make it up, you know, stuff like that. But we learned to take it. In those days we didn't call it discrimination. We didn't know it as discrimination. And it wasn't until, you know, now that I look back when some of these others say well the black people, you know, are being discriminated against which they are, or the Latinos, you know. And sometimes turn around and hey, you don't know what discrimination is. You should have been livin' in Lawrence as an Italian. Then you wanna know discrimination come over there, you know. But like I said my father always instilled in us always treat others the way you wanna be treated. Don't think you're better than them, but always think you're as good as them, so. And that's the way we do it [00:06:00.21]. I didn't like the way we were treated, but like I said we would avoid any confrontations with them that we could. If we couldn't avoid it well then hey, we just give it the best shot that we had that's all. And that's the only thing I didn't like about growing up in Lawrence. We had to stick to our own area, our own territory, and the only---Like I said but we were welcome in the French District. We were welcome in the Lebanese Districts, but not the Irish, but we learned to live with it. INTERVIEWER: So, you know dealing with all of that, I know you had mentioned that you ended up leaving school early. When you went to work you went to work at a, what was it a clothing--TORTOLANO: Clothing factory. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. And you worked there for about five years, right? TORTOLANO: Yeah, until I went into the service. INTERVIEWER: So what was your work like there and who were the people that you were working with at the time? TORTOLANO: Well, the work was good because most of the people working in the clothing factories, the shoe factories and that, mostly Italian, French, some German, but mostly Italian and French. So we got along with one another, you know, because the same ethnicity. So consequently we got along good. But the work wasn't that easy, long hours, we used to work nine, 10 hour days in those days. Wages weren't that great although we did have---When I went to work we already had [00:08:03.27] a union in the clothing This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 46 �factory. So we were doing pretty good compared to the woman workers. We were makin' $16 a week for a 48 hour week. So we weren't doing too bad. And the woman work was is in the mills were makin' about $11 a week at that time. So we weren't doin' too bad. And we'd go to work. We'd put in our eight hours a day or nine, whatever we were gonna work. And we all got along. Like I worked in the cutting department, and I was a cloth cutter, and we'd cut the cloth off the suits and stuff. And then it would go to the next person, and if by some how you cut the wrong pattern or somethin' we were all close enough to where the other worker, the next one in line would never go to the boss and say hey Al screwed up, you know. They would always come back to me and say, "Al, you know you cut this size 40, it should have been a 39.” So I'd say okay, so on my own time I would take that size 40 and get the 39 pattern out and recut 'em. Now it was a little wasted time and that, but at least the boss didn't know, you know. We would never go and squeal on one another to the mistake. We would make up our own mistakes and stuff. So we got along real good in the clothing factory. That was nice workin' there. INTERVIEWER: So at that time like [00:10:00.26] either when you were in school and also when you were working at the clothing factory, what were kind of your hopes of your future in terms of what you wanted to do with your life? TORTOLANO: At that time I don't know. Really didn't know because I figured I'd be working for the rest of my life, you know. So I was just hopin' that I could---In those days as a cloth cutter like that, I thought maybe I'll work my way up to foreman, you know, because they were makin' a little more money than me. And then who knows, maybe later on if I became good enough at it, had a few bucks, buy into a piece of the company or somethin' like that. But as far as I was concerned then all I knew was I'm workin' in the clothing factory. All we have in Lawrence is clothing factories, woolen mills, and shoe factories, so it's one or the other. And clothing factories to me was the easiest work, and it paid good money compared to others. So I really didn't know anything else, you know. Until my brother, well it was after the service. But until after the service when my brother went to California and get into the construction business. And wrote and told me the kind of money they were makin' there in construction, and that's when I said well, I'm gonna give up workin' clothing factories and go to California. But before the war this was it, I knew only clothing. And I enjoyed it, I liked the job. The job was good, clean job, you know. Hot work but clean, and that was good, you know, compared to working in the mills and stuff. So I knew nothing but clothing [00:12:01.07] or I---No, I take that back. I admired what my father was doin'. He was a union organizer and I thought maybe someday I would probably go into that. And I did become a part-time organizer while I was working in the clothing factories. And that would have been nice, too, to go into that. So that was somethin' probably in the back of my mind. That if I couldn't go any higher in clothing, well I could always become a union organizer. Because they were makin' fairly good money. But they have to travel quite a bit, and they had to take a lot of guff from people, you know. Especially the mill owners and superintendents in the mill and stuff. Cause they didn't want unions, you know. In those days hey, if you were a union man you were a Communist. That's exactly the way they thought about us. And I remember when my father used to be organizing a factory or somethin'. I was maybe seven, eight-years-old and they used to take us on picket lines with 'em because in those days if you were in the picket line and the mill owners---They owned the police in that city. They would tell the police hey, break up this picket line. And they would do anything in their power to break up the---Even if they had to use clubs. So a lot of times they would take the children. We'd go out and walk the picket lines with 'em because we knew the police wouldn't, you know, come at us with clubs because of the children, you know. And that's the way it was growin' up there. I mean in those days police [00:14:00.29] were all on the Irish---Most of them were Irish. And they didn't care much for us anyway. So when the mill owner This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 46 �told them break up that picket line, they came in and broke up the picket line. So that's the way it was growin' up. And that's the only part of the job that I didn't like that my dad had. Cause you're always worried about him or they were called Communist. And up until he became a citizen you never knew what they were gonna do. They probably grab him and deport him, you know. But he stuck it out. He became a good union organizer, but he used to travel a lot, Rhode Island, New York, all over. Wherever they felt they needed a good union organizer, that's where he was. But he would try to come home every weekend, you know if he could. That's the way it was growin' up in Lawrence. INTERVIEWER: Now I know you know at a certain point your father had sent for your grandmother, so she came to the U.S. But did your family keep any close contacts with you know the family in Italy? TORTOLANO: I imagine my father did corresponding, you know, but as far as going back he never did go back. Never went back even for a visit, and I know I have relatives over there because one of my aunts---Well she passed away about 10 years ago, but 15 or 18 years ago she went back to Italy and visited some relatives there. And I know they were in the Cassino area, so I know I have relatives there. And when I was back there this past April, I tried lookin' some up. But I didn't really have enough time because I was like a tour guide so we didn't have time. But I did call one Tortolano family [00:16:02.10], but she sounded like a younger person and she couldn't remember of any Tortolano's that moved to the United States, you know. But I'm sure if I had enough time to look up some other Tortolano's, that I would have found the ones that my aunt visited. But I know I have relatives there, yeah. But like I said my father, mother, never went back for visiting. I guess they would have liked to but they never had that kind of money. So--INTERVIEWER: Did they ever talk about family who was actually in the old country? TORTOLANO: Not really, that's one of the things I regret. We didn't ask enough questions, and they didn't volunteer that much information. Like to say well you still have a grandfather or somebody. I really don't know what happened to my grandfather. Evidently he died before my grandmother came from Italy. But we didn't know that much about the people that were left in the old country. And stupid me, we didn't ask enough questions. So to this day I really don't---You know and I don't know how to go about trying to retrace. INTERVIEWER: We'll talk about that a little after the interview because I have a couple ideas that might be worth---Um you're going into a slightly different topic. At any time you know before World War II did you ever have any contact with any Japanese Americans or ever hear much about Japanese? TORTOLANO: Nope [00:18:02.05]. To tell you---I didn't see any even in Lawrence. And like I said we were concentrated--INTERVIEWER: Hold on one second. TORTOLANO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 46 �Okay? Like I said we very seldom went out of Lawrence except to go to dances and stuff. So we never saw them even at dances. And like I said I really didn't know any Japanese people until the war. Till I met them actually even briefly during the war, but more so after the war. And so all I know about 'em is what I’ve read about 'em, and the raw deal that they got because of December 11 [7]. And to me it was odd because like I said we grew up being discriminated against so we didn't like anyone else being discriminated against. And so I didn't think about anything with that bombing and stuff. I always looked at as hey, they were following orders. Just like when I had to go in the service and I had to do what I had to do. I did it because some sergeant told me to do it, and because some lieutenant told him to tell me to do it, you know, and it worked down the line. So they only did what they were told to do, and I understand that some of the Italians were incarcerated during the war like on the West Coast, San Francisco and stuff like that, but not like the Japanese, you know. And why they had to do that, I don't know. So now they realize they didn't have to do it because, you know, [00:20:03.25] what did the Japanese have to do with Pearl Harbor, the ones that were living in this country, you know, so. But no growing up in Lawrence, we didn't have any contact with Japanese, Chinese, or Vietnamese or anything, you know. It was almost like---I mean we knew there was a Japan. We knew there was a China, but we didn't know what the Japanese people or the Chinese people were like, you know. INTERVIEWER: Ah, so you didn't hear anything or read anything at the time? TORTOLANO: No, only like after that December 11th [7​th​] and read about having to go in these camps, you know. We, you know, in the back of my mind I'm thinkin', wow if they're doin' that to the Japanese, you know what are they gonna do to my parents? Are they gonna do the same thing here that they did to them? But luckily on the East Coast they didn't go that far. You know and you stop to think now we're at war with Italy, how come my parents are left alone and the Japanese parents are in camps? You know it was a crazy situation. There's another thing, they discriminated against the Japanese more than they discriminated against the Italians. Except like I say on the West Coast I understand that some of the fishermen, they wouldn't let them go out with their fishing boats any more. And they were restricted to their homes more or less, you know. But they weren't pulled out of their homes. But that's the only contact and only things I read about. Everything I knew about them was what I read, so I didn't have that much [00:22:01.28] contact with the Japanese. INTERVIEWER: So on December 7th, you know, Pearl Harbor, where were you and what were you doing that day? TORTOLANO: Well, I must have been resting up from the Saturday night because we were always at a dance on Saturday night. And I think we were hangin' out on the corner when we heard about it. Somebody came running out of one of the stores and said hey they just bombed us. They bombed Hawaii and stuff like that. And we were just hangin' around and say wow, what's that gonna mean? We didn't know what to make of it, you know. We said why? What did they bomb us for and stuff like that. We're not at war. And so actually that's about all I could know. We had to be hangin' around the corner because that's what we did every Sunday. And then December 11​th​ [7​th​] was no different than any other Sunday. INTERVIEWER: So how did people in your community react to that? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 46 �TORTOLANO: We didn't because we didn't know what to make of it, you know, little did we know that because of that we were gonna have to go to war. You know we're just figured well they bombed Pearl Harbor and that's it. What's gonna happen after that? We didn't---No one ever said hey, oh wow, we're gonna have to go to war because war, what's war? We didn’t know what, you know. Who knew anything about World War I, you know. We just okay they bombed Pearl Harbor so what? We lost a lot of ships. We lost a lot of people, we found out after, you know. But never, never thought that it would lead to World War II [00:24:01.07], so. INTERVIEWER: So in the days following what were those like? I mean what did you do? TORTOLANO: Nothing. We just went around our business like we usually did until Roosevelt, you know, came on radio and stuff and talk about the day that we're livin' in infamy and all that stuff. I guess we got a hint then that hey maybe we're gonna have to go to war and stuff like that. And then it wasn't until we actually knew like that we were gonna go to war in Europe and they were talking about conscription, you know drafting and that kind of stuff like that. That's when we started to say uh oh, now what's gonna happen to us, you know. What are you doin' if we do have to go to war, you know, not are you gonna volunteer? Or are you gonna volunteer. Oh no, not me I'm not goin' until somebody come after me. So that was the talk we had until it actually happened, you know. Till they declared war to go to Europe. And so when that happened I said well, I don't want to volunteer. I'm not gonna volunteer. I really didn't want to go to war, so I went to work in the shipyards up in Maine because they were always lookin' for workers in shipyards. And I think I worked the shipyards for about six months, and then I got my draft notice in the mail. Report such and such a date for draft. And I says geez, I don't wanna go [00:26:01.03]. So I think I knew I understood that here was a---You could get a deferment if you were workin' in shipyards, you know, or somethin' helpin' the war effort. So I says maybe I'll do that, you know. And then I thought about it, I says no, I'm not gonna do that. I don't want to go to war, but I'm goin' anyway. So I left Maine and went back to Lawrence. Reported to my draft board and went through the procedure and they drafted me,. You know my number came up and I said, okay, if you want me I'll go. But like I said I wasn't gonna volunteer to go. And I waited and got drafted and that was it. INTERVIEWER: So how did your family react to that? TORTOLANO: Well, it was pretty tough on them because we were three brothers, and they figured---And we're all gettin' called. We all got drafted, all three of us got drafted. And they felt my god, will we ever see, you know. They're worried about seeing us again, plus worried about us going to war to Europe and fighting against our own people in Italy, you know. So they felt kind of like any other parents, you know. They didn't want to see us go, but they didn't want us to be draft dodgers, so. Like my father said, "If you have to go, you go", you know. "We don't want you to go [00:28:04.02], but we're not gonna do anything to help you stay out of it", you know. If you want to stay out of it you stay out of it on your own, but not with my blessings, you know. All three of us went in the service, and they were devastated naturally, especially when we had to go overseas. You know, they figured if we stayed in the United States it wouldn't be bad. They could see us or we'd be out of harm’s way, but the minute they found out we had to go overseas, oh my god. You know my oldest brother went first, and then I went. And my third brother, he never did go overseas, so [00:28:56.01]. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 46 �BEGINNING OF TAPE FOUR INTERVIEWER: Now the last thing we were talking about how your parents kind of had these feelings about the fact that you guys were probably going to go overseas into Italy and fighting. At all as a family were you at all aware before the Pearl Harbor about any impending war because of the war on in Europe? TORTOLANO: No. No. We didn't think anything about it cause to us that was a world away, you know. And we figured well that's their business, you know; let them settle it over there. Never did we dream that we'd be goin' over there. We thought everything would be over, you know, but that wasn't the case. INTERVIEWER: So after you received your, you know, draft notice and you reported, where did you go from there? TORTOLANO: Okay--INTERVIEWER: [Fixing mike] Okay, so after you reported to the draft where did you go from there? TORTOLANO: We went to Fort Devens for induction. That's where we got all our papers and all our physical examinations and stuff and everything. They checked our health, our sight, and we always used to joke there's no way you’re going to get out of this, you know. These guys tried to---Guys would--INTERVIEWER: Can you actually start again where you were talking about all the physicals and no way to get out of it? TORTOLANO: Okay. Yeah, we took our physical and some guys would say what can I do to flunk a physical, you know [00:02:05.09]. And the sergeants that were there would say no way buddy, cause if you can't see out of your left eye we'll team you up with a guy that got a good left eye. He says so don't worry about that, or if you limp with your left leg we'll hook you up with a guy that's got a good---You know they were always jokin' about it. There's no way. Short of being dead you're going into the service so---But anyway we took our physical there and after our physical and everything we're allowed to go home for a while. And then this is in November, then I think it was somewhere around December or so. We went for our basic training and we took our basic training in Camp Croft, South Carolina, and we were there for about three months. We took our basic training about three months, and they told us that after our basic training you automatically get a 30 day furlough. So man we're lookin' forward, you know, 30 days to go home and do whatever. But when we got through basic training, they sent us up to Camp Edwards in Massachusetts. And the 36th Division was already there, and they were gettin' ready to go overseas. So they needed quite a few men to come up to strength, you know division strength before they could go overseas. And unfortunately our basic training got over just about the time that they were getting, you know, the division ready to go overseas. So we got to Camp Edwards [00:04:01.09] and we were quarantined from the day we got there we couldn’t leave the grounds. So we were asking about well where's our furlough? They said you don't get one. Now here I am 72 miles from home, haven't been This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 46 �home for three months. I'm gonna go overseas and I'm not gonna see my parents? I said to myself no way. So I went AWOL for two days. I took off and I went home and spent a couple of days at home. Naturally when I got back they knew I was gone. And they says there's nothin' we can do to you now because we're ready to go overseas. But we'll take care of you when we get over there, you know. So, but the time we did spend in Edwards was a miserable time for us cause we got hooked up with the 36th Division, Texans. They hated our guts, we were Yankees. And we'd go to the canteen or somethin', be sitting there. Somebody will throw a nickel in the jukebox and play "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You", and we had to jump up and stand at attention. They says as far as you're concerned now you're in the 36th Division, that's your national anthem. Says whenever you hear that you jump up and stand at attention. And we had to do it, I mean we were outnumbered. What are you gonna do? So it was kind of miserable being with them at Edwards and even until we got overseas. When we got overseas I dug every latrine there was to be dug for about three weeks. That was my punishment. They didn't forget. They says we'll take care of you and they did. I'd have to dig every little slit trench [00:06:03.20] or latrine for three weeks. And then they let me off the hook for a while. But yeah we weren't---We couldn't get along too good with them. They didn't like us. They didn't like the Mexicans that were in the outfit. They didn't like the American Indians that were in. Nobody was as good as the Texans. So we were really outcasts as far as they were concerned, and we got every crappy detail there was to get so---Until we got in combat and then it all changed, so---I don't know if that's jumpin' ahead of the story--INTERVIEWER: No, that's great. Actually we'll get back to that. I was gonna ask you before you got to Camp Edwards when you were in I believe it was--TORTOLANO: Camp Croft INTERVIEWER: Yeah, Camp Croft. What was it like there when you arrived there? TORTOLANO: Oh everything was by the book. Everything was strict. I mean they were really on us those sergeants down there. Get up 5:00 in the morning, fall out for roll call. Go to breakfast, come out, barracks inspection. And they was---I mean embarrass inspection. They were strict. And that thing about throwin' the quarter on the thing is true. They would come through and throw a quarter on your bed. If it didn't bounce a certain height they'd rip off the blankets and everything and you made it over again. Your locker, the little locker that you had, footlocker had to be precise. Everything had to be just so. You'd open it every morning---You had to open everything---Toothbrush here, comb here, this and that, you know. And they'd look for the least little detail to hit you up for somethin', you know [00:08:09.09]. So it was pretty strict. Then like after breakfast it was running and it was this, it was that, bayonet practice, or climbing walls, you know. It was a real---They were really strict and really hard on the recruits there. And so at the end of the day we were bushed and this went on for three months, I mean every day. We did get weekends off though, you know. We were off on weekends so that was pretty good. But for those of us like myself especially where I worked in a clothing factory, I didn't know physical labor, you know, as a civilian. So when they threw me in like that and I had to do all the stuff. Oh my god that damn near killed me, all those five mile hikes, 10 mile hikes, one mile runs, you know. I kept sayin' to myself I don't have to worry about going to the war they're gonna to kill me before I even get there, you know. But before you know it man after about a month or two, oh man, what a difference. I said I didn't know I had this in me, you know. And before you know it you're gettin' out there in the morning and you snap to This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 46 �attention and you're doin' this. You know exactly what you're gonna have to do, and I won't say we looked forward to it. But at least we knew hey this is what we're gonna do. We don't screw up we're gonna have an easy day, we're only gonna go on a 10 mile hike and we’re gonna come back and we'll be alright. But if we screw up you go on a 10 mile hike, then come back and scrub down the barracks or whatever, you know. Or maybe they’d send you on a one mile run. So we used to look out for one another, say hey don't screw up because if one guy screws up [00:10:07.15] it screws all of us up in the barracks, you know, so---And they knew that. They used to tell us you guys police one another. If one guy screws up the whole barrack gets it so---We were pretty well disciplined, I'll tell you. When they say "jump" you don't say why. You just say how high and stuff like that, you know. And oh they used to pull all kinds of stuff on us. Like we'd be out there and they'd say well, you guys are in the infantry how would you like to get out of it, you know. And everybody yeah, yeah. They says well we got an opening for a pilot. Boy and everybody wants to be a pilot, right? So finally they say okay you, step out of line. You know what the pilot was? They take you behind the barracks and they have a pile of dirt there. They'd say okay now take this shovel and you take that and pile it to here, you know. And that was the pilot. You pile it from here to there. So we started learning all the little tricks. You wanna be a pilot or you wanna go to the Navy? What the hell could they do to us? No, I wanna be an infantry man. I'll stay where I am. So it was fun and it was strict and stuff, but at times it was fun. INTERVIEWER: Great. TORTOLANO: And all our noncoms were southerners. So you knew we couldn't screw up with them because they---Y'all you Yankees boy, you know, y’all think you're smarter than anybody else but you're not. You're gonna learn in the Army you're not the smartest people. Who the hell thought we were. I never thought we were any smarter than anyone else, but [00:12:01.10] it was again there’s that discriminating, you know. But we did it. We got through our three months. We pulled our three months and did alright. Became good soldiers, you know. INTERVIEWER: Now you mentioned you actually have the weekends off. Did you ever go into town or do anything? TORTOLANO: Oh yeah, we used to go into Spartanburg, South Carolina, that was the nearest town to our camp. And it wasn't a big city, you know, but it was nice. Had some nice restaurants there. And the girls were pretty nice there, too. And so we'd spend our weekends we'd go into Spartanburg and drink, carouse you know, eat good food, whatever. So it was nice. The weekends were good unless---We didn't have every weekend off because there were times you'd do guard duty and stuff, you know. But the weekends you did have off you get out Saturday afternoon and they’d give you a pass and a lot of times you’d get an overnight pass. You know you could stay out overnight. Other times you have to come back before 11:00 and then they’d maybe let you out again the next day, you know, so it wasn't too bad. But you could never really go anywhere. The most you’d have is from noon Saturday until whatever, maybe like 6:00 Sunday afternoon or somethin'. But it was nice, we enjoyed it. It was good. INTERVIEWER: So what kind of things did you do when you went into town? TORTOLANO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 46 �Most of it was drinking. Drinking, eating, and [00:14:00.29] trying to pick up a woman or somethin', and that was it. Or if they had a dance in town, you know, we'd go to a dance. We'd enjoy it, but it wasn't like dancing like we knew it up in Massachusetts. Because they didn’t in Spartanburg there they weren't what we call hip, you know, to the jive or, you know, jitterbugging and stuff. But we'd teach 'em as well as we could. It was somethin', you got to hold a girl, and you got to dance, you know. It was nice. We weren't into museums and stuff like that, so we didn't look for any of those things. But we'd get maybe a group, three or four guys hang out together. And we'd find things to do, you know. INTERVIEWER: A lot of the guys you were training with did they end up being some of the same guys who went over to when you joined the 36th? TORTOLANO: Yeah. Almost my whole barracks went up as a unit up to Camp Fredericks. So I knew quite a few of 'em, you know. When we went overseas I knew---Of course we got split up into different companies, but we did go as a group from Camp Croft to the 36th. INTERVIEWER: So what was the ethnic makeup of some of these guys that you know, you were serving with? TORTOLANO: Oh all kinds. Everything, all---Italian, Jewish, French, German, Polish, Mexicans, they're all different ethnic groups [00:16:04.07]. We didn't have any Japanese [Inaudible] at Camp Croft or even when we joined the 36th. INTERVIEWER: So how did they all get along together then? TORTOLANO: Well we got along good, you know---The ethnic group, like the Italian, the French, the---We got along real good. We just couldn't get along with the Southerners or the Texans. They were just somethin' that there was some reason they thought that we thought we were better than them, you know. Maybe some of us did give 'em that impression, I don't know. But it was kind of tough. And even when we went into town in Spartanburg, certain people would be---Not leery of us but oh well there are those Northerners, you know. And don't fool with them they're too fast for you and stuff like that so, you know. But all in all it wasn't bad. We'd keep away from the people that we thought were gonna give us the business. We'd keep away from ‘em. INTERVIEWER: Now either there in South Carolina or at Camp Edwards did you receive any specialized training? TORTOLANO: No. No. Everything was whatever an infantry man would do, you know, bayonet practice and stuff like that---But nothing special. INTERVIEWER: So going back to you know, Camp Edwards, once you were assigned what company and how were you assigned actually? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 46 �TORTOLANO: Uh we were assigned to a company like [00:18:01.01]---I was assigned to Company B in the 141st Regiment, 1st Battalion, Company B. So we were actually assigned to the company that we were gonna be with when we get overseas. So we worked as a company. We trained as a company. In fact on---We even took some basic invasion training at Camp Edwards. INTERVIEWER: What did that training entail? TORTOLANO: Well, they used to take us out on a small landing craft out in the bay, and then we would circle around just like we would---They told us what would happen when we, you know, actually made an invasion. And then the boats would come in, I think it was around Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. We would hit the beach and come off the boats just like we were hittin' the beach, you know, wherever it was gonna be. So we actually took regular invasion training. That was not specialized I would say, but you know we knew then that somewhere along the line we were gonna make an invasion somewhere. Or you know, if we didn't at least we knew we would be trained to make an invasion, so--INTERVIEWER: So what was your reaction then when you finally got the orders that you guys were gonna be heading out overseas? TORTOLANO: Well, I don't know. I had this feeling that I thought we're gonna go overseas, we haven't seen our families. Well I did you know for like the two days [00:20:02.04], but will we ever see them again? Are we ever gonna see our friends again. You know all those things run through your mind. Because now you know it's for real. It isn't well if I stayed in the states fine. But now all of a sudden hey, they're gonna put us on a big boat and we're gonna go overseas. And once you're over there there is no way in the world you're not gonna see combat, you know. You're in an infantry group. You start thinkin' am I ever gonna see my folks? Am I ever gonna see the kids I grew up with, went to school with? You know because now they're not in the service with us anymore. Or you know they're all spread out in different units, different branches of the service, and it's kind of a scary feeling. And then you've never been away from home per say, you know, until you went to that basic training. And at least there you figure well I'm in the same country, there's always a chance I'm gonna see my family and friends again. But going overseas, the thing kept going through my mind, what if I get killed over there. Now I'm gonna leave my family, what's gonna happen to them? How are they gonna take it? And there are so many things that go through your mind at least my mind, you know, I can't speak for others. But at least through my mind it was kind of a scary thing because I didn't want to leave the life I was leading. I grew up---I had such a good life, you know. And to look forward to somethin' like that, it was just plain scary. INTERVIEWER: So when you actually disembarked, where did you actually disembark from [00:22:08.04]? TORTOLANO: Oran, Oran, Africa. That was our landing point. We got off at Oran, and the irony of it---My brother didn't know I was on those ship that came in. But he was in the artillery and they were in Oran guarding the Port of Oran from aircraft. So technically he saw my ship coming in, and a---But he didn't know that This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 46 �was my outfit. But I did get to see him in Oran after we had gotten settled there and everything. Oh about two weeks after we got settled I knew through letters that my brother was in Africa. And so I went to the Red Cross and told them what outfit he was in and everything. And they wouldn't tell me where he was stationed, but they told me they would get in touch with him and let him know that I was there and work something out for me to see him, which they did. So I got to see him even in North Africa shortly after I get there. INTERVIEWER: What was that like meeting your brother? TORTOLANO: Oh, gee, it was, you know, it was like---I hate to say it growing up men in the service and cryin' you know. Cause I never expected to see him again, you know. You go to war, he's already there and I'm goin' over. There's no way in the world I'm gonna see him until after the war is over, if we both make it, you know. But here to---And then it made my folks feel so good, you know, me writing ‘em and telling them I bumped into Jim, you know [00:24:01.20] and he's fine. Everything is fine. Don't worry, you know, things are good. So that made them feel good, too. But then we get shipped out of Oran and went to a place called [Inaudible] and took some training there. And spent some time in [Inaudible] and then we got shifted all around Northern Africa, Casablanca, City [Inaudible], and we were guarding prisoners for a while---Italian and German prisoners. We were guarding them for a while. And then we were takin' more invasion training there. Gettin' ready for our invasion. We spent quite a few months in Africa, because I think we got there in April. And we didn't leave there until September. INTERVIEWER: So what was this kind of training that you were actually getting when you were actually there? TORTOLANO: Well we were almost like whatever we get in basic training just to keep us, you know, keep us up and keep us in good shape. And then like I say a little more invasion training, too. And a lot of map work and what to expect, you know when you---They would always say if you go, you know on this mission this is what you expect. And if you do this, this is what to expect. So they were kind of getting us ready for combat, you know. And so that we half way know at least thought we knew what we were doin'. But even those that were tryin' to tell us what was gonna happen, they hadn't been in combat yet either [00:26:01.20]. So you're sayin' to yourself you haven't lived it yet so how are you tellin' me what I'm gonna do or how I should react, you know when it actually happens. But at least we felt okay, he knows more about it than I do, so let's listen to him, you know. so. INTERVIEWER: I was just curious, you know you mentioned guarding German and Italian prisoners. Did you ever have any interesting interaction with them at all? TORTOLANO: Oh yeah, we could talk to 'em through the fence. They had like a double fence. They could come to that first fence on their side, and Italians, I could talk to them. Germans unless somebody knew a little German---But we weren't supposed to really do any talkin', and the biggest thing was throw me a cigarette or somethin' like that, you know. You got any cigarettes? Well at the time most of the guys said the hell with you, you know. We're fighting against you and you want cigarettes, you know, and stuff like that. Me with the Italians, if I thought I could do it without being caught I would throw 'em a pack of cigarettes This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 46 �or somethin', you know. Because I figured hey, these are my people, you know. I know we're at war, but I can't treat 'em as an enemy, so---And some of them were livin' better than us at those prison camps. We treated our prisoners pretty good; I'll have to admit that. We treated 'em pretty good, especially most of those down in Africa, the Italians especially, they were lookin' forward to comin' to America. Because they were sendin' a lot of Italian prisoners [00:28:03.29] to America to work in these different camps and stuff. And they had heard through the grapevine what a beautiful life that we're havin' here. So all of 'em were trying to get to as POW's to the United States, so. And a lot of 'em did. But see that was another thing that used to bother me, too. Because the rumors were that we were gonna invade the mainland of Europe, you know. Because Sicily, our troops had already invaded Sicily. But they didn't consider that the mainland because that was an island. And my thing was I'm gonna go invade Italy, I'm gonna have to fight my relatives? I sure didn't look forward to that. That I really didn’t. That was one of the real bugaboos that was bothering me about invading Italy. But then we overcame that because the day---Yeah, we invaded on the ninth, and on the eighth over the intercoms on the ships, they told us that Italy had capitulated. We were not to fight any Italian troops. Any troops that wanted to surrender, if they were Italian troops, take 'em in because we were no longer at war with Italy. Man, you talk about feelin' good. I said well good, now at least I don't have to go over and worry about killing one of my own or being killed by one, you know. So that was nice [00:29:54.02]. BEGINNING OF TAPE FIVE INTERVIEWER: Okay, we're actually gonna just take a real quick step back. I just want to hear a little bit about you know where you left from the states to go to Oran, Africa, and how you guys traveled. TORTOLANO: Okay, I think, I'm almost positive that we boarded our ship in New Jersey, and we left from New Jersey. And I think it took us about 11 days because of the way to avoid submarines and stuff. They used to take a zigzag course, and it took us 11 days to get to Europe. And that ship was crowded. I mean we were on there almost like cattle. And the first few days weren't bad, you know. You're talkin’ about what to expect, you know. What do you think we're gonna do over there, or what do you thinks gonna happen. And so the first few days weren't bad. But then after that you started running out of things to talk about and boredom started setting in. Seasickness started setting in. And I spent---I spent about four days hangin' over the railing goin' over there. I was sick as a dog. And I was either hangin' over the railing or laying down on the deck. Cause my bunk was two levels down, and I was on the bottom bunk. We used the three layers of bunks, and I was on the bottom bunk. It was hot down there, stuffy; nobody ever wanted to stay down there. So we used to go topside and stay topside as long as we could, you know. But like I said so many of us got seasick [00:02:00.17] goin' over was pitiful. And the only thing you could do on the ship, either read, or if you were a gambler. All you could see were blankets spread out on the deck, dice game goin' on here, card game there, dice game. That's all there would be so you either read or play dice, and that was the only entertainment. So there was nothin' really to do on the ship. And every so often they would call us in and some officer would brief us on stuff that was already goin' on in Europe. How the war was goin' on. Never where we’re goin', or where we're gonna land. But always you're on your way to Europe and that's all they could tell us. And so that's---Or letter writing, that was a good chance to catch up on the corresponding, writing to everybody you knew back home. And hoping that when you got to wherever you were going they would take the mail and, you know, mail it out. But there was nothin' really you can talk about as far as the ship. It was just a boring experience, you know. And I'm not a gambler so I wasn't, you know, into playing cards for money, or dice and stuff. So like I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 46 �said most of my time was spent either reading, or writing, or upchucking, or you know thinkin' about am I ever gonna get home again, you know, stuff like that. So eleven days of really boredom. INTERVIEWER: During that time did you get the chance to get to know some of the guys, you know like in your company [00:04:00.24], and your platoon, or--TORTOLANO: Oh yeah. Yeah. I get to know ‘em---You got pretty close and yet you only hung around with like a certain few people. And now one of the guys on my ship and in my company happened to be a cousin of mine from Lawrence. This Tony San Antonio. Now he was in the B Company, so he and I used to hang out together. And I kind of made friends with this ??Tommy Carr??, he's from Texas. And this, I don't know his first name, but a guy named Ybarra, Y-b-a-r-r-a. And so we used to kind of swap stories and talk about the different things, you know. How it was living in Lawrence. And they would tell us stories about Texas, you know, and stuff like that. And surprisingly these two guys, the Texan and the Mexican, they got along real well. And they were real competitive. When it came---They were two of the best riflemen when it came to drills. And they used to compete with one another. Like when we're on dry land, you get a sergeant barking out commands and they'd go on for a half-hour, hour at a time until somebody made a little mistake or somethin'. But I’ve never seen two people handle the rifle like they do. But we did like I said goin' over there we were still---Texans kept more or less to themselves, and those of us that were drafted and were the latest to join the unit, we kept more or less [00:06:01.06] to ourselves, too, you know. So it was a case of maybe hangin' out with four or five people and that was about it. INTERVIEWER: Who were some of the guys you usually hung out with? TORTOLANO: You mean on the ship? INTERVIEWER: Yeah. TORTOLANO: Well like I said, my cousin, this Ybarra, and that---Oh I just mentioned his name, ??Tommy Carr??, and you know that was about it. Yeah. That I hung out with, you know. Mostly like I said guys are either playin' cards or writing letters. And I'll tell you a lot of 'em didn't wanna be bothered. You know you're worried about what's happening. You're worried if you're ever gonna get home again, so those guys were a lot---They’re in deep thoughts, their own thoughts, and having their own bugaboos. So really there wasn't that much interaction, you know. INTERVIEWER: Okay. And actually now we're gonna move back a little bit forward to right after you Africa, you mentioned ??Magenta??. What was it like getting to ??Magenta?? and when you arrived? TORTOLANO: Oh we bought a truck and we went by truck. And when we were arrived it was just like a training camp almost like in Camp Croft. Only we have pup tents instead of barracks and stuff. Although they had a This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 46 �big like a platoon tent we'll say. Enough for one platoon, and we just took almost like our basic training [00:08:03.19]. And then they got indoctrinated when we get to Casablanca places like that. We are going to guarding prisoners and what they expected of us and what we can do and what we can't do and stuff like that. Not to fraternize with them although they said you wouldn't be in that actual contact with them, you know behind the wire mesh wire and stuff. But that was about the extent of what we did in ??Magenta??. Then they trucked us back around Casablanca and city of ??Barrechid??, the cities on the coast. And that's where they had most of the prisoners. INTERVIEWER: And so then, you know, going more forward, you heard about the situation in Italy. And you know you were on a boat? TORTOLANO: We didn't hear about that until we were on our ship the day before the invasion. INTERVIEWER: Okay. And so right after that the next day, what was that like? TORTOLANO: Well the next day, that's when we hit the beach, yeah. That was when all hell broke loose. We got off the big ships, and we had to climb down these rope ladders into the landing craft. And we were squeezed in there like sardines cause they put a whole platoon in one landing craft. And it was hell gettin' on there. Because it was the time of the year the seas were just startin' to get rough and we were out, a few miles out. And we were goin' from the big ship onto the landing craft [00:10:09.00] and it was so rough that coming down those ladders, half the time the little ship---I mean landing craft would drift away from the big ship, and then wham bang into the ship again. And we lost some men coming down because they lost their foothold on the ladders. Once they hit the water there is no way you could save 'em. So we lost some men there. But then when we finally all got onto the landing craft, what they did we pushed away from the big ships, and then we went out and they kind of maneuvered and for some reason I think until they got all the landing craft in order. What they did was go around in circles out there in the ocean. And you could hear over the loud speakers. Whatever number of landing craft you were on, they would tell you what position to take and you're goin' around in circles. And we must have done that for two or two-and-a-half, three hours. And I mean a lot of guys were getting sick on those. And then finally I guess they got the orders to go in. So as they're doin' circling now they're startin' to spread out. Now we’re goin' in as almost all of them are [Inaudible], and we're goin' in toward the beach. And the sailors are tellin' us what to expect when we hit the beach. Cause they told us that they're gonna try and get us as close to the beach as they possibly can. And they said that some of the boats [00:12:03.25] the landing craft might hit a sandbar. So at the first time that they hit, you know, like the boat hits anything. They're not gonna drop the front of the boat to where we get off because it may be a sandbar. So what they would do when they try and hit somethin', they would back off the pick up a little more speed and hit it again. Now if it was a sandbar it would kind of break loose and it would take off again. If after hittin' it two or three times it didn't go any further, then they would say okay, this is it and they would drop the ramp. And the minute they dropped they said no hesitation get your butts off the boat and hit the beaches. And most of 'em got into you know on the beach where and we got into only water knee deep. But there were a couple of 'em that hit sandbars that didn't break loose. And they thought they were on the beach. They lowered the ramp. The guys took two steps off the sandbar and down they went. And with all the heavy equipment they had on a lot of them drowned right there in the ocean, and they didn't make it to the beach. We lost a lot of men that way. But then those of us that did hit the beach, we hit the beach and we This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 46 �were told to go as far as we can and there was a point there they told us that we would recognize. You know they gave us orientation and that that's the point where we would stop and everybody would get organized. But as luck would have it where we were supposed to hit, B Company [00:14:01.06] and the 141st Battalion for some reason we hit the beach about a mile, a half-a-mile, or a mile south of where we were supposed to hit. So we couldn't really find the spot on the map that like the---Well there was a railroad line further up. But we were supposed to stop at the line before we got there. And we were confused because we didn't know we were in the wrong area. Then all hell broke loose. We started getting firing from tanks, from mortars, guys were steppin' on mines, you know, for about three days there was just utter confusion. You know you'd look at the guy, what company are you from? Well I'm C Company; you're not supposed to be here. This is B Company, you know, but then who cares. Hey, all we were doin' we were tryin' to save our butts so, I don't care what company you're from stay here. Let's you know work this thing out together. We had sergeants telling us what to do, and we had three days of real hell on that beach. And there was a time there where they didn't think we were gonna break through. And they weren't gettin' any heavy equipment off the ships. So consequently all we had was foot troops. They couldn't get jeeps off because the shelling was so intense that they couldn't get close enough to land the bigger stuff for the first three days. But then all of a sudden I guess about the fourth day [00:16:01.08] they started landing half-tracks, tanks, stuff like that. And I think it was on the fifth day we broke through, and we finally established the beachhead and we broke through. But like I said the first couple days they told us that you've got to fight. You've got to go on because there's no way in the world the landing craft can come in and take you off the beach. So they said this is it. You're here and you're here to stay so you're gonna have to fight. And that's the way it was until like I said I think it was about five days before we finally made a major breakthrough and got the enemy to pull back. INTERVIEWER: For people who aren't really familiar with the history of this, which beach did you land on and what was it like when you actually got there in terms of you know just trying to describe this chaos? TORTOLANO: Well, we landed a little bit south of a little town called Paestum; it's a hold historical town. And like I said we hit the beach and I hit the beach with this guy ??Al Mackley?? from New York. He and I hit the beach together, and scared as hell. And I didn't know what to do so I'm tryin' to be brave and this ??Al Mackley?? like me. We both like the same music and stuff. And we liked the Count Basie Band, and there was one guy on the Count Basie Band he was one helluva saxophone player [00:18:00.23]. We're on the beach and I said, "Hey Al, I said you remember this tune" so I got my rifle and I'm hummin' a tune like---He's, “Shut up”, you know he says, “We're on the beach here. We're gettin' fired at.” I said, "Look, I'm scared. I don't know what the hell else to do." So---Anyway it was chaos then, and we were so scared because it's somethin' that we couldn't think about like when we were in Africa. I know we know there was a war goin' on but what's it like. You don't know what to expect. And to see guys fall next to you, you know, gettin' killed either by mortar fire or somebody steppin' on a [Inaudible] mine and gettin' a leg blown off, you know. It was somethin' you want to throw everything down and start swimmin' back. It was---It was just somethin' nobody can say, hey now this is something you're gonna see and this is what to expect. So you know don't let it bother you. No, and it's somethin' I don't think you ever get used to. As many battles that we fought later on, it never got any better. You never say well that's old stuff, you know. It was really somethin' and then knowin' you're goin' in there and you might have to kill. I mean sure their enemy, but they're human beings, you know. And you're thinkin' I'm gonna kill, and they're gonna kill. It's somethin' that you say to yourself it shouldn't happen, you know. Why? This shouldn't happen. And then you pull yourself [00:20:00.12] together and say it's happening so brother, you know, get with it and do whatever you have to do. So that's what we did. When things got too intense we just This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 46 �dig in. Dig ourselves a little foxhole, you know, and wait for orders as to what we're gonna do. Whether to push forward or just wait or---And that was it the first few days on the---Dig a hole here. Go forward about 200 yards, okay dig in again. And it was just a matter of---They weren't givin’ any ground up. I mean you were fighting and you were taking it yard-by-yard, you know. So it wasn't something where they uh, oh, the Americans are here. Let's get out of here and give it to 'em, you know. So it was somethin'---It was awful. The only word I can, you know---Bad. Bad. INTERVIEWER: Now this was your first combat experience and it lasted for three days. How do you, you know, even do simple things like eating or even sleeping in an environment like this? TORTOLANO: You get very little sleep. Eating you eat, because when we landed we had "X" number of rations, you know, to last us for say a couple, three days at least. And that's it. You're in your foxhole and you break open your K-rations, you know. And a little can of whatever they have like corn beef hash or whatever. And you eat out of that or little biscuits that they had. And that was it [00:22:07.29]. And as far as bathing and stuff forget it---No shave, no bathing. I wasn't always worried about whether I can shave or whether I can bathe or---All I was worried about is if I run out of water in my canteen am I gonna be able to get some water somewhere, you know. Are we gonna run out of food? But they kind of figured on that so the foot troops that get on they couldn't get any heavy equipment off. But they’d come off with food stuff and things, you know. So we never thought about starving or anything like that. INTERVIEWER: So on the fifth day when you guys finally broke through, what was that like? TORTOLANO: Uh, it's hard to describe. All of a sudden they tell you okay, we’re gonna---I think our first town to take was a place called ??Alta Villa?? or somethin' like that. But they says some of the Germans have pulled back, so they said that we were gonna regroup and that our objective was a certain town. So we---Like I said we regrouped and then as a unit we started out on foot towards this town. But you can only go so far and then you’d have to rifle fire. You might meet up with a little resistance, pockets of resistance [00:24:01.19] and maybe fight for a-half-hour or an hour. Either we had to pull back or they pulled back. And then you'd advance a little more, you know. And it was just a thing of advance a little, fight a little. Advance a little, fight a little. There was no such thing as okay oh they took off. Let's get on the trucks and chase 'em. There was none of that. Everything was fight, advance. Fight, advance. And then when we got to the town ??Alta Villa?? they sent me out on patrol with a 11-man patrol, no I think it was five-man patrol. But it wasn't to engage the enemy. Because sometimes we sent out like an 11-man patrol to engage the enemy to see how strong they were. We'd make noise, we'd do this and draw their fire. And then we'd pull back and report back how strong the firing was. But the patrol I was on it was to try to get as close to the town as possible and meet an Italian because I could speak it. And ask the Italians if they knew how many troops were in town, or where they were situated and stuff like that. So we went out and like I say it was a five-man patrol, and I think we went up about---I would say maybe a quarter-of-a-mile, or half-a-mile, and we saw this little farmhouse. And we worked our way up to the farmhouse and there were civilians there. So we asked them if they knew anything about what was goin' on in the town. And they said oh the Tedeschi [00:26:01.28] pulled out, Germans they called Tedeschi in Italian. They told us that they had pulled out, but they said that they---Told us they still a few Germans there not too many. Just a few. Then we found out later a few were in the church tower, and they were snipers. They had left some snipers up in the church tower because it was up on the hill. And they were This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 46 �just harassing, you know, anybody what was walking around. They would harass 'em with sniper fire. So we went back and told the company what we were told, you know. You take their word for it, but I said I think I believe 'em when they said the Germans had pulled back out of that town. And I said we shouldn't have that much problem getting into the town. So I don't know what company, it wasn't my company that went up. But they didn't have that much problem takin' the town. All they had like I say they had a problem with snipers, but they did away with them. Hardly any problems at all. So that was our first town that was taken, and that's the way things would go. You'd get pulled back for a little rest. I'm---This is after we got in a while and things got a little better for us. They would pull the company back and regroup and see who's there or who's missing. They would get in touch with other companies; say hey we're missing two or three guys from this platoon. Do you have anybody from Company B in your company? And we'd be swapping back and forth to get organized again. And then as soon as you get organized, okay back up to the front again. So we more or less take turns [00:28:01.15] go up and fight for so long, and then they pull you back for a day or two. And that's the way it was until, you know, we hit some real battles fighting, you know. And just a matter of who was gonna give up first, you know. Whether we'd pushed through and then they'd counter attack. And for some reason they had been in war a lot longer than us. Some reason I don't know whether it was we didn't know any better or what. But we used to make them pull back a helluva lot more times than we did, you know, so---And that kind of gave us a little confidence [00:28:59.00]. BEGINNING OF TAPE SIX INTERVIEWER: Okay, so where we last left off Al, you were talking about how you guys had just moved in and you had taken the town of Alta Villa. From where did you guys go then, next? TORTOLANO: Oh I don't remember all the little cities we---Towns we hit, but we started working our way from there to Cassino, you know, in that area, Cassino, Monte Cassino, the Rapido River, the San Angelo. So we just workin' our way up the highway goin' towards Rome, Naples and Rome. INTERVIEWER: Now during any of this time, you know, once you were regrouping, had you heard anything about the 100th Battalion? TORTOLANO: No. No, but I found out after though that they had been with us all along. But see they had been on one flank or the other. And we never bumped into one another. Now I know some of the---Maybe like say the 143rd and the 36th Division, maybe they do because they might have been on that fight with 'em, you know. But none of them were ever fighting with the 141st Battalion. But later on it was---I think it was up around the Rapido River, San Pietro up in that area. That we had heard somethin' about Japanese troops, you know, fighting in the area. But I had never run across them. INTERVIEWER: What kind of things did you hear? TORTOLANO: Well, about the fighting that the---[00:02:02.22] They were gettin' called in to do a lot of the dirty work. And that they were good fighters, and they were small guys but boy they fight like hell they used to tell This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 46 �us. And later on and then what I read, you know, about 'em after the war and everythin'. They were gettin' some of the worst, what can I say. They threw 'em into some of the worst situations. Some of the stuff that we couldn't do. And somehow they turn around and then do it. Fighting for a certain town or somethin' like that. They were out to prove that they were Americans 100% and they proved it. But like I said, I didn't have that much contact with 'em even when they rescued our battalion. I saw a few of ‘em and just---But we were trying to get in and out so fast it was just hey thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And then we got pulled back for our rest. But up until then, like I said I didn't have much contact with them, no. But we heard about some of the heavy fighting that they did to help us like around the Rapido River, and the Battle of Monte Cassino, and San Pietro and those battles there. INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah, we'll talk a little bit right now about Monte Cassino. Can you tell us a little about that? TORTOLANO: Yeah. Now in order to get to Monte Cassino though, we had to go across the Rapido River [00:04:01.14]. And the Rapido River was one of the biggest blunders and biggest disasters I think of World War II. We had no business trying to cross the river wherever we tried. And found out after that General Mark Clark who was in charge of the 36th Division at the time. They even wanted to put him up for Congressional Hearing because of the blunder that he pulled there. There was no way in the world the way the situation was that we could cross the river where they wanted us to cross it. Cause before we even got there the Germans had cleared out a lot of the area on both sides of the river. And they laid a lot of landmines there. And our troops trying to get up there. The engineers were up there and they saw that they were loaded with mines. So they had the engineers go out there and dismember the mines or whatever you wanna call it---Get rid of the mines and then they would put tape, lay down this yellow tape as to where the clearance was. And that's where we're supposed to go. After a while it was in the winter, so I think it was in January, and it was always raining, it was muddy and everything. That tape would get covered up so we didn't know where you were or what you were doin'. But anyway that part of the river there was like an "S" curve [00:06:02.09] and it was just north of this town of San Angelo. And they had it set up about 500 yards on their side was all cleared out, but at 500 yards they had all kinds of barbed wire fences there. They had machine guns set up so that they were cross firing on the troops that were trying to get across. And it was the dead of winter, the Rapido River was---If you see it now, you look at it and say no, you can almost jump across this thing. Why do they have so much trouble there, you know? But see we had to have heavy rains, so it kind of widen the river. And we didn't know it at the time, but north of us there was like a little damn up there. So every time we tried crossing the Germans used to release water out of there, and it would make that river rush even faster. So they first tried crossing it in rubber rafts, but they found the minute they put a raft in the water and tried boarding it the river was so swift it would take the raft away. So then they thought okay, we'll tie ropes to the rafts. So they figured out how far it was from one side to the other side. And said okay if we use this length of rope they'll paddle across, and then when the troops get off that side we'll pull those boats back. But what they didn't figure was how swift the river was running. So the first rafts with ropes on 'em they started out alright and [Inaudible] alright [00:08:01.20], but then they got three-quarters of the way across and they were at the end of the rope. Because if you had gone straight across you'd have made it, but the current kept drifting so all they do they have to pull the rubber raft back and lengthen the ropes. But then they tried even building little pontoon bridges. They'd get half-way across and the Germans would blow 'em up. But they finally got one---From what I understand they finally got one little footbridge. Worked almost to the other side and---But any of the troops that went over there, if they didn't get hit by mortar fire or they didn't step on mines and stuff. They would only go so far and that machine gun fire was crisscrossing. There was no way in the world you could break through there. No way in the world. But this General Clark insisted This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 46 �that we were gonna cross that, you know. Now I never got across the river myself. The only time we tried crossing we got in the rubber raft. I got about half way across and the rope broke, and we got struck down maybe about 3- or 400 yards down. But luckily the way the current was flowing our raft hit on our side. So we got picked up by, you know, our own men. But it was such fierce fighting that's the only time I know during the war that they called a truce. And I think it was for 24 hours if I'm not mistaken. The Germans finally decided on a truce to where there would be no firing back and forth [00:10:01.09]. And we could go pick up our dead and wounded, and they would pick up their dead and wounded. But, they would only allow like beyond the barbed wire if anybody got caught there, they would only allow one person to go, you know, to pick up any wounded and bring 'em back. Because they didn't want anybody seeing how strong their troops were. So we did for about 24 hours there was no firing going on. We picked up all our dead and wounded. They picked up their dead and wounded. And I think that's when they decided our generals or whoever decided there's no way in the world we're gonna cross here. So from what I understand, and I think the 4-4-2nd was involved in it that they made a crossing further up the river. And that's where we got pulled out of there and we had to regroup because we lost almost a whole regiment there---Damn near the whole regiment. And we had to pull back and get, you know, come back up to combat strength again. And that's when we finally got out of there and we got pulled back for rest. We got pulled back to be brought up to strength. And I don't think we did anymore fighting in there for a while because I don't know what outfit went to Monte Cassino. It wasn’t our---It might have been like the 142nd of our regiment, but we didn't do any fighting to go up to Monte Cassino [00:12:01.03]. But that was a bloody battle up there. And I know the 442nd was heavily involved in that, too---the Battle of Cassino and Monte Cassino. INTERVIEWER: Hmm. So after that was that the Battle of San Pietro? TORTOLANO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: That you were involved in? TORTOLANO: San Pietro was another battle, and see unfortunately in Italy there are so many mountains---It is so mountainous and the only---All the level ground that they have, they tried to keep it for farming and stuff. So all their villages and towns are built on the side of the mountain. And you know the Germans are already there so they're lookin' down your throat. So every village or town that we take was a battle, because we're goin' uphill and you can't get up there in jeeps. Because what narrow roads there are goin' up there are either heavily mined or their zeroed in with mortar fire, you know. So we had the foot troops had to go up there, and it was like they used to have terraces there like grapevines and stuff growin’. And you go from one terrace to another fighting in there and there. And it was just hell tryin' to take any town there, but San Pietro we had to bomb the heck out of it. And even today it's in shambles because I found out after that it was so heavily mined that the Italians just says forget about it. We don't want to even try to [00:14:01.08] save---You know save the town because they would only have to tear it down to rebuild it again. So what they did they rebuilt the town of San Pietro a little below where it actually was before, you know. So now they have a new San Pietro down below, beautiful little town. And when we went back up there this past April I took this group of students on a tour, and there were only I think three families livin' in the town. Their houses weren't that badly hit. And they insisted they weren't gonna leave. So they have three families out of the whole town to themselves, what's left of the town, so. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 30 of 46 �Everything was destroyed up there, the church, everything, so. But like I said there was no---Never an easy battle in Italy. The mountainous terrain was a real drawback for us. INTERVIEWER: Are there any distinct memories you have of the Battle of San Pietro? TORTOLANO: No, not really. The only memories I have like is the way we had to fight to take it. Like I said it wasn't straight up hill because the people had terraced everything off so they could grow stuff. They had olive trees growin'. They had grapevines growin. And so we had to work our way up those terraces. And sometimes you’d have to route the Germans from ‘em because they were dug in there, or watch out for mines. Cause when they leave it they would leave [Inaudible] mines around, you know [00:16:02.01], so. It was just a matter of well okay we got this terrace, look up and say you got about 10 more to go before we get up to the top. And then when we did get up to the top there wasn't a German in sight, you know. Cause like I said they had bombed that town. And they had pulled out and just left not stragglers, but just left a few here, a few there, just kind of harass us. Because it didn't take many to keep us pinned down, so that we couldn't advance very fast, you know. So that's about the only memories I have of the fighting there. INTERVIEWER: Now I know during your service because I read in the "I Company" book, it mentioned that you received a Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters. Did you receive it in any of these particular---Like the Battle of San Pietro, Rapido River, or on the beachhead? TORTOLANO: No, see those weren't individual stars. They were like unit. It wasn't that I got it because of what I did in any particular battle. It was like maybe our company or---And for certain battles, and I don't even remember which battles they were to tell you the truth. In fact I was surprised even after when I got my medals that I had the Bronze Star, and the cluster, whatever. I said well we did somethin' right. And then I read about it after naturally. I know one of them we got was in France. INTERVIEWER: Okay. TORTOLANO: I think it was when we invaded Southern France. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now after the Battle of San Pietro, where did you go next? TORTOLANO: I think our next big one was in Velletri [00:18:04.29]. I think Velletri was the next one because that---No, no, no. It would be Cassino. Cassino was a battle, and I don't remember that too much because Cassino and Monte Cassino were more interlocked, like you know, cause Monte Cassino was up above Cassino. And I think I don't know which one of our Italians were involved in that along with the 4-4-2nd. But the next one that I remember would be Velletri , and that's the one the opened up the gates to Rome. That was a big stumbling block to Rome. And I think the 142nd took that because when we got there, our job, we circled the town. And we got in behind the Germans so that they couldn't bring replacement troops in. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 31 of 46 �Because we knew that we were gonna hit from the south. And so our job as the 141st was to circle around behind the town, cut the Germans off there, and stop any Germans from coming down when they finally decided to go into Velletri. And I forget who went in first, anyway they went into Velletri. And when they took Velletri that kind of opened up the "Gates of Rome." It was almost---Because the Germans pulled back from there, and being that the [00:20:00.26] Rome was off limits to any kind of fighting they couldn't stop at Rome. So when they pulled back they pulled back beyond Rome. So that like I said, we just went into Rome in trucks. And some of us walked in and some went in in trucks. But the Battle of Velletri was called the gateway opening, the "Gateway to Rome." INTERVIEWER: Yeah. At the time were you hearing anything about the 100th, you know, and what they had done at Cassino? TORTOLANO: Yeah, we'd hear different pieces about, you know, cause we were wonderin' amongst ourselves, well who did finally break through there because our company didn't, you know. We got the hell kicked out of us and got pulled back. And then like they says I understand they sent us some Japanese troops are with us. And we didn't know at the time that they were just a unit of their own, you know. We just thought that they were either volunteers or draftees like we were---And that they were put into some company. But it wasn't until after we found out that it was, you know, actually through their own regiment. INTERVIEWER: Now so after Velletri where did you guys go next? TORTOLANO: We went---I think we got pulled back to around Naples or Anzio, I'm not sure. No, I think we got pulled back to around Naples. Because they pulled us back and they---I think this might have been shortly before they [00:22:01.08] made the invasion of Normandy anyway. Because they pulled us back to get us ready for the invasion of Southern France. Now we didn't know at the time. We thought that was gonna be the big invasion. We figured well we're goin' to France or we're goin' to Europe this is gonna be it. Little did we know that we were just a ploy because we couldn't figure out why are we takin' training to put us on these landing craft and then, you know, we're out in the open. The Germans can see what we're doin'. We're on the landing craft and we're takin' invasion training, you know, in Italy around Naples. And you know we're sayin' this is crazy. Why are they---They wanted the Germans to know. They wanted the Germans to know that we're gonna invade France, hopin' that they'll pull enough troops away from the Normandy coast, bring them down to Southern France so that when they made the big invasion there, you know, it wouldn't be as hard. But I guess the Germans didn't fall for it because we went in, we made the invasion at Southern France when we finally went in and made the invasion of Southern France. We met some resistance and took quite a few prisoners, but we didn't hit real heavy resistance. Because they still knew I think behind they knew whatever is gonna come, the big thing is gonna come from England. So that's where they concentrated most of the troops up in Northern France. But from Anzio now we went to---Our next thing was Southern France [00:24:00.24], and we landed pretty close to the Riviera in Southern France. But that was the---Compared to the other battles that was a piece of cake. Because after we hit the beach we met some resistance but not that much. And the next day it was almost like there were no Germans around. Cause we got in trucks to go to our next area or battle. So to us that was a piece of cake. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 32 of 46 �So where was your next place that you were transferred to? TORTOLANO: Well then we started more or less smaller battles because like I said we were travelling pretty fast up the Southern France. And we didn't start hitting what I'd call real resistance until we started getting up in the area of the Vosges Mountains and up in that area, you know. I mean we had battles, but compared to what we had it was nothin'. We'd get like come to small town and within hours we'd route the Germans and take the town over and go through it and then get on trucks again for the next town, you know. But like I say until we hit the Vosges Mountains, we had a pretty good deal over there in France, so. INTERVIEWER: Now a how did you actually get to the Vosges Mountains? TORTOLANO: You mean up--INTERVIEWER: Yeah, up. TORTOLANO: Well like I said most of it was---We'd walk some but a lot of it the trucks would take us up so far. And then they'd drop us off like maybe a mile before [00:26:00.27] town. Or if we were meeting any kind of resistance we'd jump off the truck, you know, and wipe out pockets of Germans that were more or less for harassment. And then maybe walk a couple of miles and then if there was no more resistance we either get back like on trucks or sometimes walk behind tanks that have two or three tanks abreast and we'd walk behind the tanks. And if you hit any kind of resistance again spread out, wipe out, or take prisoners until we hit those Vosges Mountains. But that was it, walking, truck, walking, truck. INTERVIEWER: Okay [00:26:49.01]. BEGINNING OF TAPE SEVEN INTERVIEWER: Now I know we were talking about a little bit on the break, at what point did General Clark, you know, leave you know the command of you know--TORTOLANO: I don't know. I'm not sure now when. It had to have been before the battle up in Bruyeres. Because General Dahlquist was in charge then. It may have been sometime after that Rapido fiasco. I'm pretty sure because they weren't too happy with what happened there. INTERVIEWER: So General Dahlquist, when did he---You believe he took command? TORTOLANO: I think it was sometime after the crossing of the Rapido. I'm not sure just when after, but or maybe he took over like when we left Italy to go to France. And he took over, you know, Clark may have stayed in This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 33 of 46 �Italy and Dahlquist came up---Took over the outfit for the invasion of France. But probably it was the way it happened, I don't know. INTERVIEWER: Hmm. So while we're on this topic could you tell me a little bit about the men---All the enlisted men felt about these two different, you know, generals? TORTOLANO: We really don't know those things. You don't know what happened, why? I know we knew damn well we were unhappy with the Rapido River thing. And that Clark was responsible for it, you know. But we didn't know when they changed or why they changed. And---Cause you don't get to see the general very much, you know [00:02:00.04]. Although from what I understand, General Dahlquist [Phone rings] INTERVIEWER: So back to what you were saying. You were saying about Dahlquist. TORTOLANO: Yeah. I had read that when we were cut off that he came up to the front lines. He was actually up there on the front lines I guess to get the 442nd and the 100th to come rescue us. And he had an aide by the name of Sinclair, I guess and his father was a famous writer or somethin'? INTERVIEWER: Sinclair Lewis was his father? TORTOLANO: Yes. Yeah. Okay, Sinclair Lewis was his father. Now he got killed by enemy fire up there, and that kind of shook Dahlquist up. But I mean he's one of the few generals that was actually right there. That's how bad the situation was, and how bad they wanted us rescued. So he's the one that gave the 442nd the orders. I understand they had just got off a big battle. And he told them to be ready for somethin' else because we think we're gonna have to use you for somethin' big. And my god from what I read they just got off a big battle. And I guess it was maybe the third day after we were cut off is when---Third or fourth day when he finally told 'em look the situation is dire out there. We have to get 'em out. He said you're gonna have to go in and get 'em out [00:04:02.07]---Get us out at all cost. He didn't care how they did it, or what they did. They had to get us out. And from what I understand, man they tried for about two days. They used to get pushed back. They were losin' men, and it wasn't until we were there on the seventh day that they broke through. So, but now we got up there and our objective was the top of this like hill or whatever you wanna call it. And it's a real wooded area, but up on top there's like a bald area. And from the initial start from where we started our initial assent to take this was about a five mile trek I think. Now we had practically no resistance for those five miles. I mean little firing here and there, but we thought hell this is really gonna be somethin, you know. But then when we finally got up to our objective the Germans counter attacked and they worked their way around and they cut us off from the rest of the unit. Now the Germans though didn't know they had us cut off for three days. And I think they finally realized it--INTERVIEWER: Okay, we're gonna start again from the part where you guys are meeting very little resistance. TORTOLANO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 34 of 46 �Okay, so we met very little resistance, and [00:06:01.00] after we got up to our objective the Germans counter attacked. And instead of making a frontal assault because of the terrain. They kind of went around us and without realizing it they had cut us off from the rest of the unit. But they didn't know it. Now we realized that from the second day that we were cut off. Because we're running a little short of ammunition and food and stuff. So they sent a 25 man patrol---They were gonna send 'em back out to get, you know, supplies for us, and they never made it. I think only about five men came back from that patrol, and they said we couldn't get through. There's too many Germans. So that's when we realized now we're surrounded. So now the radio man from what I understand we had one radio. And he's sendin' little messages back to our headquarters that need food, need ammunition, need medics cause some of our wounded. And now realizing the situation we were in, one of the lieutenants, I think he was from A Company, they put him in charge of all of us there. And he says well here's the situation and he kind of explained what was happening. So we pulled all our ammunition, pulled all our food, and everything, and we were just dispersing it so that everybody had a little bit of everything. And on the third day finally when the [00:08:01.15]---Oh and of course he had set up a perimeter of machineguns here, Browning automatic rifles there, so that we were kind of covered in the circle. And on the third day when the Germans realized that they had us surrounded they started their counter attack. They were doin' this---They'd send a tank up and all we could do is fire whatever stuff we had we threw at them. You know like rifle grenades, and machinegun fire, and stuff. And made it heavy enough to where they would pull the tank back. Next day they'd same thing. Another tank in another area, and good thing the way we were set up we beat that tank off, you know. So I guess they realized well they weren't gonna break through and annihilate us. So they kind of just pulled back and just kept hitting us with mortar fire, machinegun fire, and it was like an harassment type basis. Meanwhile we still couldn't get any supplies in, and by the fifth day I mean we're really hurtin'. All of a sudden we hear planes come over and it's our planes, and they started dropping supplies by air. But most of it would hit the hillside and roll down the hill. The Germans were gettin' as much of the supplies as we were. And while we were up there in between all this like I said water was scarce. There was one source of water [00:10:02.21] down below, but it was lousy water, you know. It wasn't spring or fresh, it was dirty water but if you treated it it was drinkable. But the only thing with that is the Germans were using the same water hole. So we used to have to try to go down there during the night because daytime you couldn't do it because the Germans could see it. And any time we try to get through we could get hit by sniper fire and stuff like that. So we'd go at night and get water and bring it out. But every so often they couldn't see us at night, but every so often you'd hear rifles fire. They fire in that general direction, thinkin’ if we hit anybody fine, if we don't at least we’re let 'em know we're there and harassing them, you know. So anyway the worse part of being there is you got wounded. There's nothing you can do. We had some medics there and boy do I hand them a lot of---Do I can congratulate them for what they did. Because they went out in broad daylight and took a chance that the Germans would live up to that deal where if they got the Red Cross on their helmet you don't fire at 'em you leave 'em alone. And for the most part they did. So they'd go out and they'd tend to the wounded, you know, and bring ‘em in. But if we didn't have a medic in our area and you hear some guy out there during the day. He's hollering for help and he's moaning, I've been hit, you know, I need help. Its daytime you couldn't get to him. You have to wait until night time to get to him, you know. So you just keep your fingers crossed and hope he wasn't hit bad enough to where [00:12:01.25] he would at least live till nighttime where we got him out. Either that or hope that one of the medics would come in, and then he would go out during the daytime. And they were so good about that, those medics were so good. But anyway when they finally, I think on the fifth day, I think Dahlquist told them look you’ve got to get in and take 'em at all cost. We want them out. So that's when the 442nd and the 100th started makin' their attacks. But the way the area was to get to us, it was a narrow area. You couldn't get there with jeeps or anything. It was a narrow area. It had to be all foot troops. The area was heavily mined. The Germans knew just where to hit them with mortar fire and everything. And This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 35 of 46 �every time they'd make a big push they'd get pushed back. And I think for two days they kept tryin', tryin', and it was on the seventh day, their second or their third day of tryin' that they finally broke through. And I mean I forget who it was, this fella from I Company, Sakamoto was it? I don't know, but anyway he was the first guy to break through and it wasn't in my area. But from what I understand when they finally saw us and go through, he couldn't think of a thing to say except would you guys like some cigarettes, you know. But then that's when we knew now that, oh man you know, we're saved. So then they started pulling [00:14:01.02] us out getting us out of there and the 442nd stayed there until we were all out, so. To them man I owe everything. They were really---They were really somethin'. I think if I'm not mistaken I read I think we were about a little over 200 men, and they lost 800 dead or wounded. Eight hundred men to rescue 200 men, and they were thinkin' was it worth it, you know? But to them it was worth it, you know, they couldn't stand to see us---They couldn’t leave us up there and get wiped out. So to them they said it was worth for them to get losing 800 men through all kinds of either death or wounded, you know, stuff like that to rescue 200 men. That takes some kind of guts, I'll tell you. They're somethin' else that outfit. INTERVIEWER: So at that moment when you knew that they had actually broken through to you guys, I mean how did all the men feel? Because I heard about how you guys throughout all this, even though you had the difficulties with ammo, and food, and being surrounded, you had pretty good morale overall? TORTOLANO: Yeah, well our morale built up pretty good when they started counter attacking, and they'd bring a tank up and we'd beat 'em off. And we figured either they don't have enough troops there or they don't know how strong we are. Which they really didn't, because if we would have let even one tank get through forget it [00:16:01.03]. They'd a wiped us out, but the way things turned out we figured even if we run out of ammunition. When they make an attack we hit 'em with everything we go. And luckily, you know, they’d come up with that tank and take so much from us and they’d pull back. Figuring gee, how many are there? What do we have to do to get them out of there? And so consequently we didn't know how many people they had there. And they didn't know how strong we were, so we knew it was workin' for our benefit. Cause we says hey if they had any kind of strength out there, or if they knew the predicament we were in. They'd just hit us two or three different sides with tanks, you know, and they'd wipe us out. So we kind of felt hey, we're makin'---I mean we're not moving, but we're makin' some kind of headway and holding our own until somebody can come in and get us out. Because we figured they have to---You know they're not gonna say hey look forget them. Let's go on and go up above. That we knew they wouldn't do. So it was just a matter of how long it was gonna take for them to get the troops to get us out of here. And so like I said on the seventh day that godsend came, and those 442nd guys came in and out we went. And we didn't waste any time except thank you, thank you. We just wanted to get out of there and get back to safe territory. And unfortunately we didn't get to see them after that either. Cause it seemed like their either fighting on the flank like the 142nd or the 143rd. They were never with the 141st per se, you know, [00:18:06.25] to where we could say okay buddy, this, this, and that. So I really didn't get to thank 'em until we got back to the states. And I thanked them more than once, and I'll thank them for the rest of my life. They were some great guys there. And that was the most decorated outfit in the war. I think they got more Congressional Medals of all and there were multiple Purple Hearts. You know they didn’t get one or two, they can get one, two, or three. They just kept coming back for more. They proved to them they were Americans boy. I tell you. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 36 of 46 �Actually you know a couple other things I was wondering about is I know you were mentioning in terms of food and how they were saying---I had read somewhere that actually there were some French partisans who were functioning as guides who actually tried to help, you know at least gathering food from there? TORTOLANO: Not that I know of up there. They may have been but not to my knowledge. I know one time they fired a big shell in. When we heard that thing comin' over we said oh god. What are we gonna get hit with because you can tell when it comes over its close. But it was one of our shells and they had filled the nose with chocolates and stuff. You know figuring if we get it it would be for nourishment. But the darn thing got buried in the mud, so we couldn't even get that out [00:20:00.18]. We didn’t even get that so, but we were---Yeah, we were pretty low on everything, but like I said everything was rationed and they would tell you now this is your ration for the day. Do what you want. If you want to eat it all in the morning eat it all in the morning, but you know don't come to us in the afternoon or evening cause there is no more. This is it for the day. Ammunition the same way. Use it only when you have to, you know, don't just if you hear a noise fire. You don't fire until you see someone or see something. Anyway like I say it all worked out, and thank god that it worked out the way it did. It could have been a real disaster. It could have been 200 and some odd men wiped out, you know. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Does anybody else have any more questions about this before I move on? Okay, then we're actually gonna move on to now that you've, you know, gotten out of that scenario. Where did you go next? TORTOLANO: Okay, it wasn't long after that when I found out that if you had 85 points you could request going home. So we got into Germany and---Oh no, I know what. Yeah, we fought our way into Germany and I think the war ended in, what month was that? I think early in the year of 45, early in that year anyway. Anyway the war ended in Europe [00:22:04.27] and so now they were rumors that the 36th Division was gonna be shipped over to the Pacific. And I said to myself, no way. This is one time I would have went AWOL. I said I went through enough here because we had heard what they were goin' through the Pacific. I says I'm not goin' to the Pacific for anybody. But anyway I counted the stripes I had on my uniform and for every six months you get five points, and then you get five points for certain battles, and I had 80 points. I said I need five more points to get home. And then I noticed that they hadn't put down the five points for my Purple Heart. Because I think when I was in the field hospital, I don't know whether the records were lost or what, but it wasn't registered in my company as being in a field hospital, you know, for I think it was four or five days. So then when they researched everything they says yup, he was in the hospital and he was released on, you know, such and such a time. He's got the Purple Heart coming, 85 points. I says okay, I'm askin' to be sent home. Since the war is over and if you had 85 points you could request bein' sent home. I said I want to go home. So they took me out of the 36th and put me in the 63rd Division that was gettin' ready to be shipped home. So I was with them in France for maybe about a month. And then they shipped us home. INTERVIEWER: Wow. Can we actually, I'm just curious [00:24:01.15]. How did you, you know, going back to you said you were in the hospital when you received the Purple Heart. How were you and when were you wounded? TORTOLANO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 37 of 46 �It was in Italy and as luck would have it I was on litter bearing duty at the time. The Germans had just---And I can't remember the name of the mountain, but I know it was in Italy. And we had just taken this mountain and they needed litter bearers because we were pulled back for a rest at the time. And they said they needed litter bearers to go out and get some dead and wounded up on this mountain. Now they told us approximately where the wounded and stuff would be, the dead would be. And the communication guy said okay we got communication lines strung up from here to the CP up on the hill. You guys just follow this, you know, communication line, it will take you right to 'em. They gave us the wrong line to follow. They gave us lines that had been disconnected and it was on the wrong side of the mountain. So we're supposed to be let's say the north side of the mountain to go pick up the wounded and dead. These lines lead us to the south side of the mountain where the Germans were on another hill and lookin' right at us. And we're huntin' around lookin' for wounded and all of a sudden they star hittin' us with mortar fire. And this believe it or not [00:26:01.20] I don't know how I got out of it. We were six guys in a row, maybe about five, ten yards apart. And when this one mortar shell hit real close to us. It killed the front man. Killed the second from the end. I was blown up off the ground I bet you about three or four feet, and the concussion knocked me out. So when they came up and got us out and I came to in the field hospital, one of the medics there said I don't know how you made it. He says you know he says I don't know whether I want to show you this or not. But he says I'm gonna show you. I had a blanket under my arm because I was carrying some blankets. And the other guys were carrying the stretchers, you know, to pick up and the blanket was to cover the wounded to bring 'em back down. They open that blanket up; it was full of holes where shrapnel had gone through. And I'm like this so you can imagine, the shrapnel is going through here and all I got was a couple little things, one in my throat, somethin' here. That blanket was almost in shreds. He says I don't know how you lived through it or how any of you up there. So I asked him what happened, and he said well you lost two dead and one of them was hit pretty bad with shrapnel, and I got the concussion. And then there were two that came out of it, you know, pretty good. So that's how I got my [00:28:02.11] Purple Heart. And when I think about it I said boy, I was lucky there too, you know. INTERVIEWER: Wow. We'll jump back forward; you were attached to the 63rd? TORTOLANO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Now what was it like, you know, moving to this different unit knowing you were going home? Actually we're gonna stop this tape [00:28:32.00]. BEGINNING OF TAPE EIGHT INTERVIEWER: Oh Al, so I'm gonna ask you a little bit now about who were some of the people who you know were in your squad or even in your company who were really memorable over the years. TORTOLANO: Okay, there are about maybe three or four that I was kind of close to. One was that ??Al Mackley?? that I told you about that we hit the beach together. Real nice guy, real tall guy about six foot-one. And he was a semi-pro baseball player. He was a catcher, and from what I understand he showed me some clippings. The kid was pretty good, and he would have made the biggies if the war hadn't of come along. But Al This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 38 of 46 �was a real gung-ho guy. He's a guy that he got hit when we were over there. And I don't remember where it was. I think it was before the Rapido River. We were in a battle and our company captain got hit, Captain ??Harmanson??. He got hit in the leg or somethin' and this ??Al Mackley??---And this Captain ??Harmanson?? was a small guy, a little guy. This ??Al Mackley?? put him on his back and carried him. Hell I don't know how far before we got to, you know, a first aid station. So Al was that kind of a guy. And, but Al got hit a little later on and he got what we call the million dollar wound was enough for him to get sent home. Now everybody looks for that million dollar wound, but he got hit in the wrong place. He got hit in the knee and that really screwed up his baseball career [00:02:00.25]. Because he got sent home, and he lived in the Bronx, New York. And at the time my father was organizing up in Ossining, New York, which is where Sing Sing is. And I wrote my dad and told him about this ??Al Mackley?? and what a wonderful guy he is. I said if you get a chance, you know, would you get in touch with him. So my dad did better than that, not only got in touch with him he went and he visited him and went and talked to this ??Al Mackley??. Incidentally, ??Al Mackley?? has passed on since then, but he's one guy. And then there was this ??John Salteri?? from New Jersey, real---Always happy go lucky guy. We used to go on like whenever we got pulled back or somethin'. We could find a city to go back and get, you know, half way decent city where they had places open. We'd go in town and have a few drinks, and I remember a couple of times we found this place where they had musicians. And during the day the musicians weren't there, but there was a piano there and drum and base. So ??John?? would get on the piano and I'd get on the bass, and I wasn't good at it like I said. But at least I kept the rhythm, you know. He was a pretty good piano player. He played that---And the people looked in there, you know. They thought we were somethin'. They didn't understand that much about music, I guess. But anyway he was another guy that I went to visit him after the war, too. But I guess you want to talk about that a little later. INTERVIEWER: Well if you want you can talk about it now. TORTOLANO: Okay [00:04:00.05]. On my honeymoon we were comin' out West and we drove. So I says well we're gonna visit some of the guys that I know that were in my outfit. So we visited this ??John Salteri?? and never forget it. His father owned a nightclub there. It wasn't a big club. It was like more a neighborhood night club. And you talk about being scared. It was at night. I found the place. Found where it was, and I went in there, and my god I walked in and I swear to god I said, "This has got to be the mafia place." I mean I looked at those guys sittin' around the table playin' cards, havin' their drinks, smokin'. So some guy come up and says, "Yeah, what can I do for you?" I said, "Well I'm lookin' for ??John Salteri??. They looked around they said, "What do you want him for?" And the way he was askin' oh, wait a minute, you know. I says, "We were in the war together.” I says, “We were in the same company together.” And I says, “I told him that if we ever get out of this alive either he look me up or I look him up", I says. "What's your name?" So I gave him the name and this and that. He says, "Where were you in the war?" I had to tell him where I was. Where I took training. Where I---So finally I guess they figure yeah I'm legitimate. The way things were goin' I says oh, the guy thinks I'm a hitman or somethin', you know. Then after all that crap he says, "Johnny isn't around here. He got married and he moved away." So I felt like sayin' why didn't you tell me this in the first place, you know [00:06:06.05]. So anyway that was the ??John Salteri??, I never got to see him cause he moved out of town so I didn't get to see him. But I did get to see this ??John Palfy?? in Pennsylvania. He was in our company, too. Now with ??John?? real nice guy, but he was married before he came into the service. And I guess his wife had a child just before---Either just before he came into the service or right after, cause I remember he was married and with a child. And I remember one time in Italy; it may have been just before San Pietro. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 39 of 46 �They called for a patrol to go out one night, and it was supposed to be a patrol to go until you meet the enemy, fire on 'em, see what fire power they got and come right back. Now ??John?? was a BAR man that Browning Automatic Rifle, automatic rifle man. And they knew they were goin' out on that patrol that night. And for two hours that afternoon he kept tellin' me, "Al I don't wanna go." He says, "I have a premonition. I don't wanna go." And somehow I felt that hey, this guy he got that feeling and who knows. He may be right cause he never shirked his duties, you know. He'd been on patrol before. This one he just didn't wanna go on. And he says, "So do me a favor, if anything happens write my wife, tell her what”, you know. So I says, "I'll tell you what John." I says, "I'm not married", this and that [00:08:04.08]. I says, "I'll go on patrol for you tonight." So I don't know whether that, you know, his premonition would have been true or not, but anyway I took his place on patrol so he made it through the war. He made it home, and I visited him like I said when I was goin' on my honeymoon in 1948. He was home, oh man they treated me and my wife like royalty there. We spent two days, got there early afternoon, and we left the next afternoon. But they couldn't do enough for me, you know, because of what I did for him over there. And who else was---Those are the real three that I was kind of really close to. INTERVIEWER: Um hmm. TORTOLANO: That I would do things with---And of course I would like to see anybody I was in---But these three I would really like, you know---When the war was over I said if at all possible, I would like to get in touch with them, you know. But unfortunately ??Palfy?? is the only one I physically got in touch with. Like I say, ??Al Mackley?? by the time I got in touch with his family, I looked him up on the internet, and I got an email address for a ??Al Mackley??. But it turned out it was his nephew. But anyway we went back and forth, and he told me that Al had passed away about four years before. But he said his widow would like, you know, maybe to hear from you. So I emailed her a couple times, but I've never been able to go back to New York [00:10:00.25] to visit, you know, with them, so. But like I said those are the best friends I had in the service. INTERVIEWER: So going back, now where were you exactly when you found out that the war had ended at least for you in Europe? TORTOLANO: We were in Germany, but I don't remember what city. I don't remember. INTERVIEWER: Okay. So once you joined the 63rd, then you were shipped back to stateside? TORTOLANO: Yeah, I got sent to the 63rd, and I think we may have been at Le Havre for almost a month. Because we had to go through a process before they let us on the ship and to send us home. We went to a delousing procedure, oh man that was---You go in this place to take a shower. Then you go in and they got a hose with like powdery stuff, you know, because evidently somebody in the outfit had what they call scabies. And they weren't about to let us go to the United States. So we were supposed to have left within two weeks. But we didn't leave for almost a month before they were actually sure that we were alright to let us go back to the states. So, but knowing we were going home we didn't mind it too much. Because we This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 40 of 46 �says hey those other guys are bein', some of them are bein' sent over in the Philippines and stuff [00:12:01.15]. But since we know we're goin' home, you know. So the months wait there was hell, nothin'. Cause we'd joke and we'd play cards. They'd let us go to town now and then, you know, under supervised conditions. Because we never knew when we were gonna ship out so---But I say it was a good month there, an anxious month, but a good month. INTERVIEWER: Wow. And so when you finally did arrive home here in the states, where did you arrive? TORTOLANO: I think we---I don't know whether it was New Jersey or---But I know that we were mustard out of Camp Devin again, Fort Devin. Cause that's where we went in and that's where they released us from. So, yeah, I got out in October of '45, and I hung around a while. I didn't go right back to work because at that time we had what they call the 52-20. We were gettin'---I'm not sure whether it was $20 a week for 52 weeks or $52 a week for 20 weeks. But it was somethin' that---We were gettin' some kind of money. I knew I didn't have to go right back to work because they assured us that no matter what, when you get out of the Army you could go back to your old job. They had to give you back your old job. So I said well, I'm not about to get tied down right away. So I think I probably loafed around for about six, seven weeks, you know visiting my friends and doin' this and doin' that [00:14:02.13]. And then after about seven weeks it got a little, you know, I said well I've done all the visiting I wanna do. I think I better go back to work and start earning a little money, you know. And that's what I did. I went back to work and kind of fell back into my old ways. Although the same people weren't around, you know the same friends. A lot of them were there but they had already married, so I wasn't hanging out with them. And it was almost like having to make a group of new friends again, you know, guys that like the same things you did. And were interested in the same thing, you know. So it was almost like starting over again, but I did. It worked out. I went back to my work, back to my dancing, and drinkin' with the guys and stuff like that for maybe about a little less than a year. Because then I met the woman that I was gonna marry, kind of settled me down a little. Although she loved dancing too so we used to go dancing a lot. And I courted her for almost two years before we were married. And I got married in 1948, but then like I said on the tape earlier. We honeymooned in California because my brother had already moved here in California. So we figured we’d like to see California and part of the country. And it’d would be nice driving the country, seeing the country. Seeing my brother because I hadn't seen him in a while. And then figure I'll come home and settle down, you know, which I did [00:16:02.29]. But then I got the wanderlust. The money I was makin' wasn't that great in Lawrence. And my brother kept writing me and telling me that he could get me in the construction, you know, workin' in construction. And where I was makin' even after the war, I think I was only makin' about $20 to $28 a week or somethin' like that. So he says you come out here he says I can get you a job in construction starting at $2.50 an hour which was good money in those days. So I talked to my wife about it and we talked things over. Her mother had passed away in the meantime. And she still had a brother living at home with the father, so we got together and talked about it anyway. And they said yeah, we can manage. If you wanna move, if you really wanna go out there don't worry about dad. We'll take care of him, and you go do whatever you feel you have to do, you know. So I thought well my wife was agreeable. My folks didn't mind, cause my father had been visited my brother and he loved it here because it was this area. Cause it reminded him a lot of Italy. Because when he came and visited it was still all these orchards around. So he said when I retire I'm retiring in California. So I said well fine, he's gonna retire in California I'll go to California, too. But he got killed in an automobile accident before he retired, so [00:18:01.18] that shot the California thing for him. But I still had in the back of my mind that I wanted to go. So in 1952 I came out and I was gonna go to school on the GI Bill of Rights. I was gonna go to dental, not a dentist, but to make plates and stuff, you know, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 41 of 46 �dental plates. But I wasn't---I didn't come out here, maybe I don't think I was out here three, four months, and I got word that my father was killed. So I had to go back because there was no one there. Cause my brother was on the road as a musician, and my sister was married. So I says well I'll go back to---Because my wife hadn't come out here yet. Cause I was gonna come out here and get set up, you know, go to school and get set up and then send for her. But like I said when my dad got killed I came home and stayed home for---Until about a year and then we went back to California. And been there ever since. But occasionally I go home, take a trip---I try to go home every second year to visit my sister, and what friends I have there. And so my civilian life I've been keepin' busy. I got tied up with---In 1955 I joined the Disabled American Veterans, and I've been active with them ever since. So I not only helped [00:20:01.20] get veterans into the hospitals and stuff, but in the year '99, 2000, I was the Department of California Commander. And we had over 100,000 members. I'm currently on the National Executive Committee for the Disabled Veterans. I volunteer one day a week driving the little shuttle up at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto. I drive patients from building to building or pickup people in the parking lot and take them to whatever building they wanna go to. So that kills one day a week, you know. Two days a week I volunteer at the American Legion Bingo. So I keep pretty busy, and a couple of days a week I leave for the family, so. And that about brings us up to now. INTERVIEWER: Wow. I'm gonna ask you real quick. Can you tell us your wife's name and how you met her? TORTOLANO: Oh yeah, her name is Alice, we talked about this just in Mississippi because they were laughin' about how we met. We used to go dancing. You know I had met her and I had seen her around and talked to her a few times. But this one night at the dance up in Canada Lake in New Hampshire. I said to her I gotta make my move with this one because that's the girl that I want. The others I wanted just for dancing partners or whatever, but her I wanna go out with, you know. So we were at the dance and she's with her clique of girls and I'm with the guys. And I---Some reason I [00:22:04.19] went back; they had like a little kitchenette at the back part of the dance hall. I went and I bought a hot dog. I felt like havin' a hot dog. So I'm walkin' around with that hot dog in my mouth. It's cold and everything. I don’t know what the---So I just went up to her and say uh would you like a bite of the hot dog? She looked at me like I'm a nut. I said, “Come on have a bite of hot dog.” I figure she takes a bite of hot dog, I sit down and we can talk, you know. She says, “But that cold hot dog you want me to take a bite of that cold hot dog?” She said, “If you want to talk to me sit down and talk to me.” So then I did. We sat down and we talked that night, you know. Went home, at that time we used to go to Canada Lake by bus. And but we didn't get on the same bus goin' home. They left a little earlier than we did. But I found out that they were gonna go to the dance the following week. So during the week I roamed around. I knew approximately where she lived. So I roamed around and I bumped into her and asked her what time she---What bus she was takin' to go to the dance. I said, “Do you mind I'd like to go up to the dance with you and everything.” She says okay, so she says what time the girls are goin'. So that was it. Got on the bus and we're yackin'. I'm with the guys talkin' and we’re talkin’ back and forth, and we spent quite a bit of the night together dancin'. And then I asked her out for a date, and little by little it was a me and you thing. I gave up carousing and stuck with her. I went with her for two years. I think we got engaged [00:24:01.19] after about a year. We stayed engaged almost a year before we got married. And we had two beautiful kids, Jim my son, Roseanne my daughter. Neither one married. Jim, he was born in 1950, and my daughter was born in '55, but they're doin' well out here. They're on their own and they're both doin' well. So things really turned out good for me. You know, I came through the war okay, not too many scars. And a lot of things I know I don't remember. A lot of things I don't want to remember, but all in all like I said one time in one of the speeches. I didn't wanna go, but since I had to go to war I don't regret the This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 42 of 46 �experience I had, you know. It opened my eyes up to a lot of different things. And it reminded me always what my father used to say, "Treat everyone as an equal", you know. And boy you learn that in the Army because you always want somebody watchin' your back, you know. You don't want to make enemies there. There's no such thing. That's why I say after the war started naturally we were losing more Texans because they were all, you know, most of them were Texans. And as we got replacements we were gettin' 'em from Pennsylvania, from all those things. And before you knew it, now all of a sudden they weren't givin' us the business anymore. Now they have to treat us like one of their own because they figure if I give this guy too [00:26:01.02] hard a time and we get in somethin' real tight, you know, situation. Who knows he may just turn around and walk off, you know. So we started getting along pretty good, and I kept thinkin' dad you're right, you know. You gotta treat people the way you wanna be treated, so. He was a smart man. INTERVIEWER: So do you ever share any of your wartime experiences with either of your children? TORTOLANO: I didn't for years. And it wasn't up until maybe oh I guess maybe six, seven years ago we started. You know they started asking me about questions and I started telling them about some of the experiences I had, you know. And it's like anything else, even like the 442nd and that. When I went to that company reunion and the speech I made, some of those young kids in the audience were cryin'. They came up to me after and says you know my grandfather never told me things like that. My father never told me what he went through. And I said well people, we don't like talking about it, you know. But I'm glad I went because it opened up the eyes of a lot of young people. And they are too, because I heard from some of them after. Says boy that little speech you gave there, now I went to my father and I asked him questions and I finally got to where he's answering and telling me some of the things he went through. So at times it helps to talk about it, you know, but we were reluctant. I figure why do I want my children to know what it's like, you know [00:28:03.27]. If it ever came to a thing where he had to go to war then maybe I would tell him, you know. But over the years he asked me questions and I'd answer 'em. And I'd tell him as well I could what happened and what we went through. INTERVIEWER: And did you ever talk about anything like after the war with either your siblings or your parents about your war stories? TORTOLANO: No. My parents I don't know if they wanted to hear anything about it or didn't. I really never discussed it with them. Now I used to discuss it like my cousin from Boston who was in the service, you know, in Europe. And he was in the Battle of the Bulge, and we kind of swapped stories after the war. Cause I went and---He and I are real close and I went and lived with him in Boston for about three weeks after the war. So we used to go out almost every night and he and I and this friend of his Nick, I can't think of his last name. He was also a veteran. But we used to go out night clubbing together, you know and stuff. I have to say we were treated like kings. My god after the war it wasn't like the Vietnamese, forget that war. When we got out you go in a joint especially when I was still wearin' a uniform until I got, you know, busted out. You walk in a joint and you couldn't buy a drink. You're a hero. You had a uniform on, couldn't buy a drink. And if you did have a uniform on and they found out, hey I just got back from overseas. You still couldn't buy a drink, you know. I mean it was really three weeks of really, how can I put it. It made you feel like a [00:30:07.10] movie star, you know. Hey you did this, you did that. And This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 43 of 46 �how was it over there? That was somethin'---It was rough. You wouldn't wanna do it, it was rough. Well have another drink. So it's---That was it for my after war experiences [00:30:35.01]. BEGINNING OF TAPE NINE INTERVIEWER: Let's see a one of the last questions we usually ask is in terms of---You know, first I want to thank you very much for sharing all this time with us and sharing your story. TORTOLANO: Thank you. My pleasure. INTERVIEWER: And one of the things we usually like to ask in terms of what you think is important about people learning about and understanding the contributions of, you know, military units like the 141st and the 4-4-2. You know the passing on the knowledge of this to future generations? TORTOLANO: Well I think what I learned from it is the fact that people if they really try and then really put their minds to it, no matter what your race, religion, or nationality is, you can get along. And you can help one another, you know, and that was proven so great with the 442nd. I mean here's a people that whose folks were taken away from their homes, their business. They were put in a camp, and yet they said well okay maybe that happened to my folks, but we're gonna show you that we are Americans, you know. And they went and volunteered to fight for their country. So to me I would say if you could watch a tape like this, listen to me, and do like my father used to tell me. Don't look at a guys color, don't look at his religion, don't look---Just look at him and say hey I'd like to meet you and talk to you and find out what kind of guy you are, you know [00:02:03.07] and take it from there. If he's a nice guy, you know, we're not all nice guys. But I mean you don't determine that until after you've talked to or met and know what that person is. You don't just say he's a WOP, he's a mafia, you know, he's a Mafioso. You don't know what I am. Same thing I don't know what you are. So give me a break and I'll give you a break. Let's get together and let's talk about this thing. Why can't we get along? What's wrong with a yellow person? What's wrong with a black person, you know. There's nothin' wrong with any of us. But it's just these things that have come up from years ago that---And, you know, parts of the country look down on certain peoples. Other parts of the country look down on other people, you know. It’s---A good example, I just came back from Mississippi. They are still prejudiced down there, you know. I've seen people there, and I've talked to some people there. And they still use the "N" word, you know. Maybe not right to the person's face, but in talkin' to me. Oh yeah, them "N" guys, you know, and N******, they’re still givin’ us problems down here. I said they're givin' you problems because you're givin' them problems maybe. I said because if you treated 'em half way decent. Oh no you can't treat 'em. They'll step all over you, walk all over you. That's crazy, you know. So the South is still---They need a lot of work. They need to listen to people like me a lot [00:04:01.04] more. I'm not the greatest guy in the world, but at least I learned through experience. Don't demean anybody else, you know. Be good to people and people will be good to you. At least I think they will anyway, and then that's my philosophy. So I'm not the smartest guy in the world, not the most intelligent guy in the world, but that much I know. So I've got Jewish friends and to me you know they're no worse than my Italian friends. I got Italian friends that are bums, you know. But hey, if you don't bother me, I don't bother you, so. But that's what I would leave and that’s what I've instilled in my children, and thank god they were raised that way. My son and daughter to them there is no color, no nothing. And they know like my son knows and my daughter knows. If my son fell in love This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 44 of 46 �with a black girl he could bring her home and it's not gonna bother me, you know. Because to me it's still a person, a human being. If he turns out gay, she turns out---That's alright. That to me that's not somethin' they chose or they picked. They were born that way as far as I'm concerned. So they can come to me about anything like that, and we can talk about it, you know. And I hope I got through and I think I did get through them on things like that. And I think if everybody else would [00:06:01.07], I think it would be a helluva lot better world. If we could stop border stuff or he comes from here and he comes from there. Or he can't be too good because I remember in the old days the Italians, as many Italians as we were in Lawrence. We could have elected any official we wanted cause we used to outnumber, you know. Because we used to get the other ethnic group that would have, you know, come along with the Italians. We get an Italian to run for office, on the corner hey don't forget you gotta vote for so and so. I ain't gonna vote for him. Why? I knew his father in the old country, his father was a bum. I said well that don't make him a bum. Nah, it runs in the family. I mean that kind of thinking, you know, and that's what used to bug me. I mean if we stuck together the mayor could be Italian. The guy in public safety could be Italian. I said, “What's the matter with you guys”, but that's the old time thinking. If the father was no good the son is no good. No, you gotta stop that, that's not right. But to me maybe that's answering your question, I don't know but I think that's the question I heard, so. INTERVIEWER: That was great. Anybody else have any questions. Okay. I just want to thank you very much Al for coming to the interview today. Now we'd like to shoot some of the pictures, and you can explain what's in the pictures and then we'll have lunch. TORTOLANO: Great. INTERVIEWER: Okay. [Photo of eight men] Al can you tell me starting from the back row on this side [Left to right] who's in the picture? TORTOLANO: Okay [00:08:02.02]. Now those that I remember on the left side is a fella name ??Herman Warren??, he's from Texas. Next to him is myself. Let's see the next, okay next fella is a guy named ??Petry??. I don't know his first name---Named ??Petry??. The two on the end I don't know. I don't know their names. I know I've been with 'em and that, but I don't know their names. Now the one on the left kneeling, that's that ??John Palfy?? I was tellin' you about. The one in the middle is ??Travis Smith??, he was the chief, he was the head cook there. And the one---And he's from Texas. And the one on the right is ??Red Donowerk??. He's from Ohio. [Photo of two men in uniform] On the left is my brother Jim and the right myself. This was taken in Rome. I don't remember the year, but it was taken in Rome and we spent about three days together in Rome. And we had somebody take a picture of us for remembrance. [Photo of Al by a monument] 2000 at Peystum where we made our invasion and they commemorated a park in memory of the 36th Division. That was in 2000. [Group photo] That one there is a group of [00:10:06.00] students from Los Angeles, the Rosary Parochial School. It's a history class and the teacher of the class travels all over the world. And she read about the 36th Division in one of these magazines, ??Travel & See Magazine?? and she thought that it maybe would make a nice trip for her and the pupils to go to the actual sites of where part of the war was fought. And the travel agency is here in Cupertino, I mean Campbell. And they know that I went on that trip in 2000, so they asked me if I'd go along as a tour guide. And I said yes. Now that photo was taken at the entrance to a town called Villetri, one of the towns that the 36th Division liberated and opened up the gates to Rome. That's the whole group there, all This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 45 of 46 �the young ladies and a couple of their parents. [Postcard titled Montecassino] Okay now this is a post card view of the abbey up in Monte Cassino. Now the bottom it shows you what it looked like after the allies bombed it, and then the top shows you it being rebuilt to the exact specifications as it was before. And I brought that post card home with me in the year 2000. So it's really amazing how they [00:12:00.28]---And as hard as that road is to get up there. How they rebuilt that the way it is is just amazing. INTERVIEWER: Okay, can you tell us a little bit about this flat? TORTOLANO: [German flag] Yeah. This is a flag that I brought home with me when we liberated one of the cities in Germany. They had this flag flying; I guess they didn't have time to take it down and take it with them when we routed the town. So I was lucky enough to take it down and before anyone else got to it. And then what I did I had quite a few of the fellas in my company sign it. And I have quite a few names of the guys in my company on there. And I'm kind of proud of that flag. It doesn't get---I don't take it out very often and it isn’t shown to too many people because I don't think they’d want me showin' a German flag anymore---But I'm kind of proud of it. [Knife put in front of flag] This dagger is from what I understand it's a dress parade dagger that SS Troops used to use. That's the story I got. I'm not sure whether it's true or not, but it is a nice authentic German dagger, and I got it from one of the POWs that we took in Germany while we were in Germany. And supposedly it belonged to the SS Troopers, but I don't know because I don't know who was an officer and who wasn't when we took in prisoners [00:14:05.10]. Because none of them had insignias on their collars or their shoulders, so they might have all been privates for all I know. But anyway I got that from one of the prisoners, and it's one of the few things that I brought home that I had that didn't disappear before I got home. Maybe it would be nice if we opened that. It's kind of hard to open. [Zoomed in on knife] There's an inscription on the blade it says [German], which I get to mean "All for Germany" or "All for the fatherland", I think is what it is. I haven't cleaned it up because I don't know if I ever wanted to sell it as a collector's item if you're supposed to touch these things and clean 'em up or---So, but I hadn't thought about this for a long time, but recently somebody asked me if I had any souvenirs from the war. When I showed him this he says, "Hey, that's probably a collector's item." So he's gonna---He knows a collector of stuff. He's gonna have him look at it and let me know if it indeed is worth anything or not. But I'm leavin' it for my children [00:15:44.28]. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 46 of 46 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Astro "Al" Tortolano oral history interview, August 31, 2003 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Astro Tortolano oral history interview transcript [full interview], August 31, 2003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tortolano, Astro: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 46 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-08-31 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. San Jose, California Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2003OH0377_T_Tortolano