Woodbine Veteran Recalls Second World War and Life After Combat

WOODBINE – When Bill Fitzgerald, of Woodbine, was 18, in 1944, World War II was well underway. He had graduated from high school in upstate New York and had just been drafted.
He didn’t expect to return home alive, so he spent that summer at a lake in the woods, enjoying the Adirondack Mountains’ beauty.
“I loved that region,” the now 95-year-old veteran said. “I wanted to spend what I thought were my last days on this Earth in that beautiful area.”
He volunteered for the mountain troops, but, after his training, ended up as a paratrooper for the Army’s Airborne Division, landing in the Philippines.
The Philippines campaign was the American, Mexican, Australian, and Filipino operation to expel the Imperial Japanese Army occupying the Philippines during World War II.
Fitzgerald said the Japanese Army overran the Philippines during the first half of 1942. The liberation of the Philippines commenced with amphibious landings Oct. 20, 1944.
The U.S. and Philippine Commonwealth military forces were progressing in liberating territory and islands when the Japanese forces in the Philippines were ordered to surrender by Tokyo Aug. 15, 1945, after the dropping of the atomic bombs on mainland Japan and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
“There were thousands of Japanese soldiers in the jungles on the islands,” Fitzgerald recalled. “Most of their rifles and ammunition were gone. We had to round up everyone for the eventual surrender by the Japanese. If they didn’t surrender, though, we were preparing for the eventual invasion of Japan in November 1945.”
Fitzgerald said he was starting a three-day rest and relaxation stint at a lake resort when, the next morning, he learned that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan. He was on a plane to Okinawa soon after, because the war had changed overnight.
“We didn’t know about the bomb before it was dropped,” he recalled, referring to the soldiers. “We were gearing up for the invasion, but things changed overnight and that never happened.”
In Okinawa, a young Fitzgerald and his unit had to visit prisoner of war camps, hospitals, armories, and other facilities to make sure rifles were stacked and ammunition stored, according to the Potsdam Declaration, which called for the unconditional surrender of Japan.
He ended up spending a year in Japan, recalling “the people were great toward us. There was no animosity, except for a few of the officers. Many of them had been educated in the U.S., in colleges on the West Coast, and thought we would be soft, but the American soldier was a very good soldier back then.”
Most of his paratrooping jumps were done after the war, according to Fitzgerald. He would often jump for other soldiers, so they could keep their wings.
“I would jump for them if they didn’t want to do it,” he said. “I was 18, 19 years old, and it was fun for me to jump. It was a sport to me.”
By the end of 1946, Fitzgerald returned home to upstate New York and thought it was too late to start college that year. A provision of the 1944 GI Bill enabled all former servicemen to receive $20 of unemployment benefits per week for 52 weeks per year while they were looking for work, of which Fitzgerald participated.
“My dad was an engineer for General Electric, and he started working as a young boy,” Fitzgerald said. “I had small jobs every summer, too, growing up, but I joined the 52/20 Club and became a bum, in a way. You had to periodically show you were looking for work, but we lived at home, ate at home, and spent our money on beer, and I had an old jalopy that ran.”
His goal as a young man was to use his love for hunting and fishing to earn a forestry degree, live in the Adirondacks, and meet a girl who loved the forest like him, and get married.
However, he didn’t enjoy his forestry program at Syracuse University and eventually transferred into business. He and a friend started their own construction business during their senior year, building homes.
“Until we went bankrupt,” he noted. “We went to Tennessee, and it was a good experience, but we grew too big. I lost everything, including my wife.”
Over the years, he tried other jobs, eventually meeting a guy in Philadelphia who encouraged him to join Yellow Cab. He thought he would work there for six months to give him time to get back on his feet and figure out what he wanted to do, but he stayed for 23 years, working for the company and the union in all sorts of “enjoyable” jobs.
At 61, he became a social worker for Cape May County for another 19 years, retiring just before his 80th birthday.
At 95, Fitzgerald still drives, enjoys his vegetable garden in the summer, and gets together with other veterans at the Belleplain Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6257 and American Legion Post 298, in Woodbine.
“I didn’t join these two groups until later in life, and regret not joining sooner,” he lamented. “These are two good service organizations with a nice group of men and women who do a lot of good projects.
“Both of these groups need new members, and I encourage veterans, especially females, to join. They can help you connect to services for vets, make new friends and encourage you, so I hope that this Veterans Day you make the connection for yourself.” To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.