The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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211979 Pte. Nicholas Distasi United States Army 101st Airborne (Able Company) from:New York City This is a story about my grandfather's WW2 experience as a sniper in the 101st Airborne. My grandfather passed away 4 years before I was born, not much was known about his service since he kept most of it to himself. What I am going to tell you is what he told his son and daughter(my mother)and what I could gather from old soldier buddies of his. Nick, just like many other 17 year old boys of the day, convinced his father to let him join the military after Pearl Harbor. Nick and his best friend joined up in 1942 with Nick choosing Airborne because they paid more and his buddy choosing ground infantry. Nick didn't realize at the time he was joining an elite unit and at its most infantile stage. Nick was eventually assigned to Able Company of the 101st and was sent to Camp Toccoa for training. I was told that he was chosen for sniper school and spent some time away from the other troopers to train. Before the best friends left for war Nick's best friends mother tore a dollar bill in half and gave it to the best friends and told them that they would meet up again. Nick didn't think too much about it and headed off to war. Not much is known about his jump on D-Day we do know that he gathered up with other scattered troopers that night in France. Nick said that when they jumped they were really tired and that when he landed he meet up with Lt. Muir and some other troopers. Nick explained how the Lt. was lost at night and told them to take a nap and then they would move out. Nick said he closed his eyes and the next thing he knew there were screaming Nazi's pointing their guns in his face. Being surprised and having a sense of humor he woke and screamed don't shoot I got a lot German friends back home I wanted to go fight the Japs. Nick had realized that nobody woke him and Private Archie Ponds up and that it was daylight and the spot his Lt. choose to nap at was actually right next to the road. He said the Nazi's noticed him and Archie sleeping from the road while driving.I think he was really upset that the morning of the D-Day invasion he was already captured. The Nazis carted him off to god knows where, then he ended up in Stalag 4f where he ran into his best friend who was captured somewhere else, they supposedly connected the dollar halves as my Uncle and Mother claim. Nick was eventually freed by the Russians in 1945. My grandfather never went to any Army reunions or talked about the war, it probably hurt him inside that he was forgotten and was captured on day one of the invasion. Maybe the dollar bill saved his life, fate had seemed to follow him to the end. Nicholas A. Distasi passed away June 6, 1974 from a heart attack at the French Hospital in NYC, 30 years to the day of D-Day in France. Don't know much more about his involvement in the War, would love to find out what happened to him during capture. Richard Michael Volpe Add to this record.  Related Content: D Day and the Battle of Normandy Stalag 4F Prisoner of War Camp Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.