George G. R. Fontanesi

1st Sgt. George Fontanesi in Italy

NAME: George G. R. Fontanesi

ASN: 33079760

PLACE OF BIRTH: Rices Landing, PA

DATE OF BIRTH: 21 Sep 1919

DATES OF SERVICE: 15 Jul 1941 - 1945

UNIT ASSIGNED: E CO 2nd BN 503rd PIR

                                  E CO 2nd BN, 509th PIR
                                  B CO 509th PIB

CAMPAIGNS: Algeria-French Morocco, Tunisia, Naples-Foggia, Anzio, Rome-Arno

AWARDS: Combat Infantryman Badge, Parachutist Badge with three combat jump stars, Silver Star Medal, Soldiers Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, 3rd Zouaves Regiment Badge, EAME Campaign Medal with arrowhead device and four bronze star devices, World War II Victory Medal

(Had been nominated for the Distinguished Service Cross and considered for the Medal of Honor)

SUMMARY OF SERVICE:  

21 Sep 1919 - Born in Rices Landing, Pa., to Italian immigrants who ran a bakery.  Born as George Raymond Fontanesi the Army occasionally lists him with the middle initial G.

1922 - Family took him back to Italy when he was 2 years old

1938 - He fled Italy as a young man because he didn't want to fight for the fascist Mussolini, he traveled to Switzerland, France, then caught a boat to return to America

1941 - George Fontanesi remembers the day in 1941 when he got his draft notice, signed by President Roosevelt. "I was the proudest guy," he says, his Italian accent softened by nearly 70 years in America. He carried it in his pocket wherever he went, and showed it off to everyone he met. Only later did he realize that thousands of young men got the same letter. "Needless to say, I was disappointed."

15 Jul 1941 - Enlisted at New Cumberland, PA - NARA Enlistment Record

At basic training, they asked for volunteers, Who wants to be a paratrooper? Fontanesi raised his hand. It was a financial decision. The Army was paying $21 a month. The Paratroops offered another $50. Subtract $6 for laundry and it still left him with a small fortune. "I thought I was on top of the world with that kind of money. But I found out it goes fast — at the poker table."

While training for the Paratroops he was approached by the Office of Strategic Services to come work for them since he was fluent in Italian but by then he had made friends he did not want to leave.

He shipped to England aboard the Queen Mary and trained with the British 1st Parachute Regiment.

08 Nov 1942 - Cpl. George G. Fontanesi 33079760 E Co 2nd Bn 509th PIR Library, PA Participated in Operation 'VILLAN' Plane 5, Seat 7, Combat Wieght 274 lbs

08 Nov 1942 - The paratroopers boarded their C-47s and flew 1,600 miles — the longest airborne mission in history — to assault airports at Algeria.

"Young as we were, we thought it was a big joke until some of the boys started getting hit pretty bad and got killed. We realized there were all kinds of risks involved."

23 Nov 1943 - S/Sgt. George G. Fontanesi, GO 94 HQ Fifth Army Award of Silver Star, listed on page 383 in the book 'Stand in the Door' by Charles H. Doyle and Terrell Stewart

14 Sep 1943 - The 509th launched a parachute assault at Avellino, Italy, and ran smack into the 6th German Armored Panzer Division. They were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.  The mission was to hold the line for a few days until the 5th Army broke through. But by the second week, after laying land mines, conducting sabotage operations and harassing the Germans, ammunition and food were exhausted. With no relief in sight, he and his men were hiding out in the mountains.  This is when he earned his Silver Star. Against his commander's wishes, he borrowed civilian clothes from a farmer, stashed his dog tags in his pocket, walked past German lines to town and started "making deals" with the Italian citizens for supplies. "Every day, this man's wife used to bring us a pot of pasta with broth," cheese, bread and other food, he says.  The lieutenant was furious with him for disobeying orders. "I told him, 'Look, I got a bad habit. I like to eat.' "  Finally, a group of American soldiers — an all-Japanese unit — broke through the town and relieved them.

There was much more fighting — in the high ground above Venafro, Italy, during an amphibious assault at Anzio — but the toughest and bloodiest was for Monte Cassino.  The Allies were trying to break through the Gustav Line and seize Rome. The Germans occupied the valleys and surrounding peaks and ridges. From January to May 1944, Monte Cassino was assaulted four times — costing 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers their lives.

29 Feb 1944 - The morning began with a ferocious German artillery barrage, followed by an infantry assault. With the Germans screaming and firing, Fontanesi noticed that the forward.30-caliber machine gun had been knocked out. He crawled on his belly, firing his Thompson submachine gun as he went, to get to the big gun and found three of his men wounded and one dead.  He took over the gun and returned fire as Germans pelted the line with grenades.  Under fire, he managed to pull the wounded men — one by one — back to the rear. On his third trip, "all hell broke loose with artillery coming from all sides." He crawled back to the machine gun, was hit by shrapnel, but continued firing.  "By that time, the Germans had started retreating. A couple of them jumped right over our hole. Our artillery caught them in an open field. It was a disaster for them."  Then, he rounded up his men from Company B — many of them green replacements, some in shock — and brought them back to safety at the secondary line. "They were pretty scared."  Later that afternoon, he returned to the battlefield. "The sight and smell of what I experienced was sickening," he wrote in a report of the day's events. "Many shell-torn bodies of my men and that of the enemy lay all over the entire area. The stench was awful.  If I forget lots of things during my lifetime, this is one sight that I will never forget."  Of the 86 men, only 17 were present after the battle. The rest were lost, captured, wounded or killed. "They shellacked us pretty good."

10 Apr 1944 - 1st Sgt. George G. Fontanesi 33079706 B CO 509th PIB GO 5Award of Combat Infantryman Badge

During the course of all his fighting, he had taken shrapnel and bullet fragments in the knee, left arm, fingers and back. The war was over for him. The 509th was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the first parachute unit so honored.

"The company commander put me in for a Distinguished Service Medal and Purple Heart," he says. There was even talk of a Medal of Honor. "When I left, they told me all the papers and the medals would follow me to the States." He received one of his two Purple Hearts in 2001 and was told that the Distinguished Service Cross had been awarded and would be in the mail. It never came. "As of today, I'm still fighting with them. In fact, I give up."

He went to Naples, then home. On the 509th's next combat mission, the man who took his place, Anthony Dorsa, and 18 others in his stick of paratroopers would jump into the water and drown in southern France. Their bodies were never found.

Back home, Fontanesi would marry his girlfriend, Evelyn, father a boy, George, and two daughters, Nancy and Francesca, work for a trucking firm in Pennsylvania, then become boss of the terminal. After 26 years, he retired.

He and Evelyn, 80, who spend half the year at their tidy mobile home in Boynton, and the other half in Pennsylvania, will celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary on Jan. 16 2007

His uniform, with Italian dirt still caked on the boots, is on display at the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, N.C.  He still has bullet fragments in his fingers.

Fontanesi returned to Italy more than a dozen times after the war, and he even helped collect mementos for the WWII museum in Anzio.

He can still see his buddy Charlie Farmer getting killed. "A sniper got him in the back of his head three steps from the hole," he says.  And now he is standing over Charlie's grave, his arm draped over the cross. Tears are streaming down his cheeks. He is talking to Charlie. Out of respect.

George remembers the time they were drunk in London and Charlie fell into a bomb crater, breaking his back. Charlie could have gone home the next day, but he didn't want to leave his buddies. The decision cost him his life. On the day Charlie was shot in the head, George had wanted to see his body. But there were too many corpses, stacked like cordwood. All he could see was the dog tag tied around his toe.  What did George tell Charlie at the grave site?  "I told him I was surrounded by my son and grandkids. That we had a wonderful life. I said, 'I wish you could have been there with me.' "

Highest Rank: 1SG First Sergeant

Article on George Fontanesi and Family return to Italy

Excellent Article on George Fontanesi by Matt Holzmann

14 Dec 2010 - Passed Away Obituary on Legacy.com

George as a youth with his parents and relatives

George with parents. Late 1930's in Castlenuovo di Sotto, Italy

George standing above Romeo, Mother, and Bruno

George with neice Cathie, Alba & Bruno Fontanesi and sister-in-law Betty

George with mother and nephew Bruno

Paratrooper George Fontanesi at Fort Benning, GA

George R Fontanesi showing off new paratrooper uniform

1st Sgt. George Fontanesi at home from the war

George Fontanesi's uniform on display at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum

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