D-Day and Battle of the Bulge
A Veteran Remembers
Additional Images
These days, Joseph Kowalski would rather spend his time twirling ladies around the dance floor than talking about his service during World War II. But on June 6, Kowalski marked the 66th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion by speaking to his friends about his role in the pivotal battle at Omaha Beach in Normandy.
Over the years, Kowalski, 92, has participated in a number of events about World War II on college campuses and elsewhere in the community. He has helped organize the veterans who reside in his retirement home. He attends annual reunions of the Army's First Infantry Division, which have been held in recent years in Michigan and Colorado. A couple of years ago, one of his daughters put together his World War II memoir from the stories he shared. This year, he will attend the reunion in San Antonio, Texas.
But Kowalski would rather spend these days dancing, talking about his nine (soon to be 10) great grandchildren and thinking about his wife Inez, to whom he was married for 61 years before she passed away a couple years ago.
"We met in 1945, after the war," he said of his wife. "We got married ten weeks later. Her name was Inez Decresenszo. A nice Italian girl."
Even his postwar marriage feels like a far cry from the early 1940s, when Kowalski spent the first five years of that decade in the Army. He was supposed to be discharged the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
"When we arrived back at the fort on Monday morning [December 8, 1941], no one asked for their discharge papers," Kowalski said in his memoir.
Kowalski tore cartilage in his knee during training at Camp Blanding in Florida. He was reassigned to lighter duty tasks before heading overseas. After three days at sea, he arrived in England and spent six weeks training before seeing his first action of World War II in Algeria on November 8, 1942.
"Our welcome was an artillery shell that landed about 25 feet away from where we were standing," he remembered. "Luckily, it was a dud." Kowalkski said they took the shell apart and the writing inside indicated that it had been constructed at a Nazi concentration camp in Poland.
Kowalski arrived in Italy on July 10, 1943. He said he remembers fighting what felt like a losing battle against the Italian tanks when General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. arrived. Kowalski said Roosevelt told the American troops that there would be no retreat. He also awarded one of Kowalski's friends with a Silver Star for having hit three Italian tanks.
After a month of fighting, Kowalski and his unit were sent to England for additional training. He used some time off to visit London for a weekend. Despite air raids, Kowalski explored the city. When he returned to the YMCA where he had gotten a room for the weekend, he found it bombed out.
Kowalski said he and his fellow troops did not know they were going to land at Normandy, only that they would be part of an invasion.
"When we hit the water, we had to maneuver between dead bodies and trucks in the water," he said. "There were also tanks stuck in the mud. After we made our way to shore, it took me until the next day to find the rest of my outfit."
He said his company moved slowly until the middle of July that year.
Following the invasion, Kowalski's regiment moved through France and Belgium. It was there that Kowalski suffered major injuries when an artillery shell landed near him in the woods. He said the force of the shell knocked him back against a tree and a two-and-a-half-ton truck rammed him. A doctor worked on him by flashlights, and even considered putting him in a body cast. He was sent to a hospital in Wales where he received the Purple Heart and spent the next three months recovering from his injuries.
When he was released from the hospital, Kowalski was sent back into action at the Battle of the Bulge.
"Only three guys in the company were left when I got back from the hospital," he said. "These guys got hit when I was in the hospital and I was a lucky guy."
He said he remembers the cold winter of 1945 with lots of snow and sleet. His company moved through Germany all the way to Czechoslovakia when word came that the war was coming to an end.
Kowalski was sent to Paris for four days before flying back to the U.S. as part of General Dwight Eisenhower's convoy.
"Boy, those four days in Paris were great," Kowalski detailed in his memoir. "We just went around the city like big heroes."
Kowalski and his mates were flown back to Maine in a B-52 bomber, and were greeted by a kiss from a young woman when they first stepped back on U.S. soil.
He was discharged on July 14, 1945.
"There were only 25 of us on that big plane, but there were no seats," he said. "We were just lying around for the whole flight back. It was great to get back to the States."
After the war, Kowalski worked as a chef and later owned his own restaurants in Massachusetts. He moved to Florida more than 30 years ago.
These days he spends his time organizing ballroom dancing activities at his retirement home in Gainesville, where his neighbors have nicknamed him G.I. Joe.
"What I'm doing more is running the dances," Kowalski said. "The people gather around and some of them dance and some just watch. I play the harmonica with the piano player. And, I have a great dance partner, who is my next-door neighbor. I'm pretty lucky that I can do this. A lot of the World War II veterans are in wheelchairs or they need walkers. I'm lucky that I can get around still."
But, the Staff Sergeant still remembers D-Day on its anniversary each year. This year, he planned a special event where he lives at the Atrium, with a number of speakers lined up for his D-Day anniversary program.
"During this war, the people's support for us was terrific," Kowalski said. "They sent us everything we needed. Now, I'm thanking them for being back here and supporting me." §
Editor note: There were no “Polish concentration camps.” Nazi Germans had established camps on occupied soil.
