My name is Dominic Mangialardi. I was born in Bronx, NY, on September 3, 1924.
In the summer, we took frequent walking trips to the zoo, which was a couple miles from our house. In those days it was a pleasure to walk around the streets. You had no problems with other people. I had two brothers. My father was a barber. He came from Italy as a young boy. He opened a barber shop and did very well.
I was with some friends in a diner in my neighborhood when we heard on the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I guess I was about fifteen. It didn't quite register. I'd never heard of Pearl Harbor. I met my wife at that time. She was a drum majorette. I was playing the drums in the band. I used to know her brothers. They were neighborhood people. So we all knew each other. In fact, we used to march in all of the parades together. I got my draft card when I turned eighteen. I volunteered for the navy because I didn't want to go to the army. I heard stories that they would spend weeks and months in the woods eating out of canteens and all that stuff. Going to the bathroom in the woods. I said, this is not for me. I heard that in the navy you had cold and hot running water. Cold and hot food, a bed to sleep on. I often tell my family, as young people, we really didn't think about what was going on. We thought more about what our parents were fearing. That we weren't home with them.
I reported for duty on March 26, 1943. I met with a few fellas from the neighborhood and we took the train down to Penn Station. At the recruiting office, they assigned us to a group. They put us on another train and we went up to Pennsylvania, up New York state, almost to the Canadian border. I think it was Geneva, New York. Sampson Boot Camp. After our long ride, they took us for breakfast. What was our breakfast? Beans. Navy beans. Who ever heard of having beans for breakfast? They made us shower and they gave us clothes. We had to go through a line and the guy would just look at you and he knew your size. That was the first day. That was Sampson, New York.
We'd get up at 0500 and we'd run around the track. Maybe a mile or whatever it was. Then we'd have breakfast. Then we went to a documentary orientation. I spent three months there. I remember a few guys there, but I didn't keep in touch. I lost contact with everybody after the war.
We were all assigned different places. I was assigned to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. I worked there for a few months. After that, we went to Lido Beach for a few days before disembarking. I used to come home at night, because it was right by the Long Island railroad. The night we learned we were going to leave the next day, I went home and didn't tell my mother. I left my keys on the refrigerator.
We sailed out on the Queen Mary without an escort, because she was supposed to be the fastest ship on the water. There were thousands of men on the ship. Army guys and navy guys. It was mostly army, because they were preparing for the invasion of Europe. We ended up in Scotland. We stayed for a couple of weeks. I was assigned to a construction battalion. I was with them for a while. We visited Glasgow and Edinburgh. I have a picture of me in a kilt. We visited London and some other places in England. I never worked with British soldiers, but I did meet them when we went into town. Officers read your mail so you couldn't give any information away. As D-Day neared, we were given orders to return to the United States.
I came back to Boston, where stayed a week or two until we got reassigned. We all got leave to come home. As we were on the train coming home from Boston, I was with five or six guys from my area and we were comparing our leave papers. My papers said thirty days leave. Another guy's papers said a little longer than that. So I said "I'll come back with you." We all met at the same time, the same day. Sure enough when I went back to Boston, they grabbed me at the door because I was over leave by one day. They said, "Look, you come back when your papers say to come back. And not when your friend's papers say to come back." I was restricted to the place for a while.
They reassigned me with another group of guys to pick up a new landing ship outside of Chicago. While we were there, most of the guys had gunnery practice in the Great Lakes, shooting targets in the sky. Naturally, me being a medical man, we weren't allowed to carry a firearm.
We had to go down the Mississippi river with the ship partially built. From Chicago to New Orleans. There, they assembled the rest of it. Then we went to Mobile, Alabama, then out into the ocean for a shakedown cruise to check the ship out. We came back to Mobile and they loaded us up with ammunition. We sailed to Panama and they kept us in the bay because we were carrying ammunition. When they saw a clearing for us they gave us an okay and sailed us through the canal. They wanted us to go through as fast as possible. Roosevelt died during that trip.
We had time to kill and our captain took the ship fishing on the way. We were headed for Okinawa. Guam was our first stop. We used to sit up topside in the evening, smoking cigars. Once it got dark there was no light outside of the ship. It was like a cruise. Somehow, before we got there, I got orders to return home. I never made it to Japan. In that period of time, the war ended.
They put me on another ship back to San Diego. I was going home on leave. I said, "I'm never going back to California, the war's over." Sure enough, after thirty days, I went to the navy yard in Brooklyn and they gave me orders to go back to California. I picked up another ship there. We went up and down the coast. That's where I spent the last days of my service. Then they sent me to Lido Beach, Long Island, where I was discharged on March 6, 1946.
When I came home, thousands of guys were out here getting jobs. There were really no jobs for guys like me because I got out late. I applied for a couple of schools. I couldn't get in. It was crowded. Everyone went for the GI bill in those days.
I found a few jobs temporarily. I did side jobs to make a few extra bucks. I worked as a taxi driver. I worked in the garment district in New York. I worked for another man who was making office cabinets. Finally, a friend of my brother's told me they were looking for butchers. I wasn't a butcher but I'd worked in butcher shops for a long time. I went and they hired me and sent me to their school, and that's where I ended up.
I kept in touch with Nancy. We were going out. That was 1946. I used to go out with this gang of guys and she used to go out with this club of girls. We used to go out Saturday nights with them. We danced to jukebox music. We used to meet once a month. One guys house this month, another guy's house the next. Before you know it, each one of us was getting married. We all started having families. My oldest daughter was born in 1950. My second daughter was in 1955. My son came later. I have three kids. My oldest daughter is a Catholic school teacher. My son is a lawyer and he's in the New York State guard. I retired in 1989.
