Join Kim Munson as she interviews World War II veteran Arthur Frangello in this captivating episode of ‘America’s Veteran Stories.’ From boot camp adventures in Newport, Rhode Island, through the Mediterranean campaigns aboard PT boats, Arthur shares anecdotes filled with wit and wisdom. Discover how a young sailor found humor amidst the turmoil, forged lasting bonds with his crewmates, and even navigated the entrepreneurial world of cigarette rations. Arthur’s tale is not just one of service, but a testament to living with resilience and heart.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 02 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 that accompanied four D-Day veterans to Normandy, France, for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. And Return stayed side realizing each of these stories are so important. They need to be recorded and broadcast and archived, hence America’s Veterans Stories. I am so honored to have on the line with me today World War II veteran Art Frangello. And, Art, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
SPEAKER 07 :
Definitely. Now, how old are you, Art? Ninety-seven. And where were you born, Arthur Frangello? Cambridge, Mass. Okay, and is that where you grew up?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, let me tell you about Cambridge, Mass. I had the opportunity and the adventure of going to grammar school, high school, and college all in the same street in Cambridge, Mass. Then Ritz Technical. And then Harvard College. You heard of Harvard College, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
I have heard of Harvard, yes. What did you study at Harvard? Physics.
SPEAKER 08 :
What are those easy courses? I dropped out of high school. But after the war ended abruptly, I got out and went back to high school. I had to go back two years to graduate. And here’s the miracle. I left high school because I didn’t like it. Then the Air Force sent me back. I mean, the military sent me back. And here’s the miracle. I did graduate.
SPEAKER 07 :
And then you went to Harvard and got a degree in physics? Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, I didn’t make it all the way. My romantic prowess exceeded my academic ability. I got married and had a couple of babies. I’m a fringe tech after two years. At the end of my second year to join the world, I left Harvard at the end of the second year to join the Navy. Excuse me. I left high school after two years to join the Navy, and I left Harvard two years after I was there to join the world.
SPEAKER 07 :
I got it. I got it. So how old were you when you joined the Navy, Arthur? Eighteen.
SPEAKER 08 :
Eighteen.
SPEAKER 07 :
And what year was that?
SPEAKER 1 :
1943.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
And what happened once you joined the Navy? Where’d you go?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, my first station was Newport, Rhode Island. Newport, Rhode Island, that’s food camp. And then I got six weeks. So here’s the trick. The Navy furnished us with Buster Brown hats. They’re pancake hats. Perfectly flat. So I took a wire coat hanger and wore it in the inside of the cap so I could bend the cap so I looked like I was in the Navy for 10 years. I got on the Boston subway and other sailors were saying, how long you been in the Navy? I didn’t tell them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and as we were doing the pre-call, you have a great sense of humor. And I can tell you probably make people smile around you a lot. And you said you really appreciate language. So tell us a little bit about that, Arthur.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, my father was Italian. And my mother was German. They had a pact among them, between them, that neither one would speak a foreign language in our home. We spoke English. So my father, although he was born in Italy, would give us a language lesson each day. Tell us, you can’t say between you and I. It’s between you and me, you tell me. So after a while, you know, you get to learn. You learn. Grow in America. We love America. My father loved America.
SPEAKER 07 :
And did both your parents immigrate to the United States?
SPEAKER 08 :
No, my mother was born in Jamaica Plain. Her father was German, and he jumped the ship and bought some harbor and settled down in Jamaica Plain. He didn’t like the war in Europe at that time. He didn’t agree with the policy. That’s my grandpa. Never met them. They were all dead before I was. My grandparents were all gone before I was born.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. And how many kids in your family?
SPEAKER 08 :
I had two sisters, an older sister, a younger sister, and an older brother.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. So you’re just a kid. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, just four.
SPEAKER 07 :
I was a poor kid. Okay. So 1943, you joined the Navy. You go to boot camp. What happens after that, Arthur Fongiello?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I get in the boot camp, and I saw PT boats going up to Narragansett Bay. So I said to the instructor, how do I get on one of those boats? He says, finish in the top 10% of the class, and we’ll put you on one. So I said, wow. So I did make that. I made the 10%, top 10, and I got to Melrose Island to join the PT fleet.
SPEAKER 07 :
And explain to our listeners what a PT fleet is. What is their purpose? And tell us a little bit about the boats.
SPEAKER 08 :
A PT boat is 80 foot long and 20 foot on the beam. Their greatest feature is speed. Speed and the ability to carry four torpedoes, which could ship anything in anyone’s navy at that time. We were able to… A PT boat was able to sink anything afloat. And… When we got caught in the war, we didn’t have a lot of shipbuilders, but we had boatbuilders. So PT boats were a natural, and we copied the model from the English motor torpedo boat, and we put plenty of them on the water.
SPEAKER 07 :
And how many crew members were there?
SPEAKER 08 :
Boats normally held 12 enlisted men and two officers. That would be a total of 14. They added additional men when they added additional guns. When they put a 40-millimeter on the stern, that’s quite a gun for a PT boat. We had to take on another one or two crewmen to man the gun.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. And what were the accommodations like? Like sleeping, eating, all that?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well… the best you could possibly want. We had clean beds at night. We were crowded. It was like sleeping on a trailer with your friends on vacation. You had to behave yourself and treat the others the way you wanted to be treated. Keep yourself clean and so forth, you know, clothes and stuff. And I’ll tell you… The guys that welcomed me and the crew were like a family. I loved them. They’d do anything for you. I got a Gia John letter one time when I was in France. And at that time, on the boats, we used to read each other’s letters. That’s how hungry we were for a letter. By the way, a letter took two weeks to get to us. Two to three weeks to get from the United States to France. Well, anyway, I got a Dear John, and I was kind of moping around and stuff. They took my Dear John letter and posted it on the bulletin board. Oh.
SPEAKER 07 :
So.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s the end of it. The gal asked for her pictures back. I’ll just give you, I’ll give you a fictitious name. Her name was Joan. Joan asked for her pictures back. So the guy says, we’ll get her pictures back. They collected all the nude pictures they could from the fleet, put them in an envelope and sent them back to Joan with a note allegedly from me saying, the face is familiar… The name is familiar, but the face isn’t familiar. Pick your picture out and send the rest back.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, ouch. Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 08 :
The Reader’s Digest. I don’t know. I don’t know if it was mine or what, but that’s my story.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my gosh. Well, I guess the guys did dearly love you. Well, and did you have the same crew throughout the war?
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. The war ended in Europe in April of 1945. There were tears in our eyes, and I thought it was because we were leaving France. It wasn’t because at that same time, our great president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his fourth term, died. Our leader died. The country was together in that. We were one nation at that time.
SPEAKER 07 :
Wow. And so 1943. So what happens? So you get the grades to get onto a PT boat. So what happens next then, Arthur?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, we go on patrols every night, so forth. And I got to say this. I got to say this. I got seasick every time. The only thing that cured my seasickness or took my mind off of was when the enemy was shooting at us. After a night of fighting all night long with, you know, the rockets and all that jazz, my skipper says, what do you think? I says, well, I cured my seasickness.
SPEAKER 07 :
Did you ever get seasickness after that, or did you get seasickness every time you got on the boat?
SPEAKER 08 :
Every time I got on the boat. I could control if I eaten cream crackers or soda crackers and not eating before I got on the boat. But a lot of times, you didn’t think you had to get out, but didn’t let me scramble you. You had to leave. You had to get underway and do your thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Now, Arthur, I don’t know that much about the PT boat. So were you based like on a larger ship or anything and then did your patrols from that or were you on the patrol boat all the time? What did that look like?
SPEAKER 08 :
PT boats are normally docked at a pier. Think of us in terms of aircraft. We go on patrol and then get back to the base. Boats were docked in various ports in the Pacific, Mediterranean. We ate ashore where the CVs took us. It was great. We didn’t need anything. We go on patrol at night, come in in the morning and then go eat in the mess hall and then have the day off and go out the next day.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Okay. Well, we’re going to continue the conversation. I’m talking with World War II veteran, 97-year-old Art Frangello, about his experience in World War II on PT boats, patrol boats. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veterans Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora on Parker Road. And great specials Monday through Friday for lunch. And for happy hour, great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977 and it is time for a facelift and the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military to say thank you to those people who’ve put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom. is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. And it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients. And they do that through over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients. But additionally, They are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org.
SPEAKER 06 :
RE-MAX REALTOR® Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of REALTORS® Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home. Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.
SPEAKER 03 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Munson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. We’re going to continue the conversation with World War II veteran Arthur Frangello. Arthur, during the break, you said that you wanted to make a disclaimer. What is that disclaimer?
SPEAKER 08 :
It is this. War is not a school for heroes. I am no hero. We were a bunch of young kids that answered the call of our country to defend her. And we did it as we grew from young boys to young men.
SPEAKER 07 :
And the other thing you mentioned is, well, and thank you. Thank you for my freedom. But you also said that peace really should be our goal, correct?
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. Peace, true strength. No one ever walked into a bar room and picked on the heaviest, biggest guy there. You pick on the weaklings. You don’t strengthen it. That’s the answer.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. Okay. Well, and you stepped forward, and as you said, it was all of you young guys that stepped forward this call to stand against tyranny and evil, I would say, in our world. So what happens after boot camp? When did you get to Europe? What does that look like exactly, Arthur Fongiello?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, a typical military snafu. We were trained to go to war in the Pacific, and they sent us to the Mediterranean. They put us on a ship, and we joined the PT boat, Quadrant 22, in Missouri, Africa. I was the replacement quartermaster on the PT 302, and those kids could go home for Christmas. The original crew. Okay. So our tour of duty started in Missouri, Africa, moved on to Sicily, Naples, Corsica, and our final destination, and they can send me back anytime. They don’t even have to pay me, was southern France. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
What did you like about southern France? The women.
SPEAKER 08 :
Don’t forget, I was 18, 19, single, no family, you know, no attachments. And, you know, like I say, we were like the Air Force. When we came back to the base, we had the day off. We could go to the local nightclubs, go partying, go whatever. Whatever you’re doing, what’s normal for people that are alive.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. I’ll tell you a secret. I never smoked. My father was dead set against me smoking. And he said, smoking will kill you. That was in 1930. He said, smoking will kill you. I think he was a genius. But anyway, when I got in the Navy, I got in line. I didn’t smoke. I got in line to get in Iran, Africa to get my cigarettes, cigarettes, rations. You paid 50 cents, you get a carton of cigarettes. I said, I don’t smoke. I’m not getting in that line. And my shipmate, Shaki, said to me, hey, get the cigarettes. You can sell them for 50 bucks a carton outside the gate in the black market. Well, I’ll tell you, we were getting paid $21 a month to get $50 a month for a carton of cigarettes. I became a millionaire.
SPEAKER 07 :
You sound like quite the entrepreneur, Arthur Frangello.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’ll tell you, yeah. To this day, I don’t smoke.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Well, your dad was right, and that was good advice. And here you are, 97 years old, so your dad was definitely… Something was right, huh? Something was right. That was right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Let’s talk about… And I learned from my kids. I got a son named Wayne. In 1963, he got me to start running. In 1973, I was 50 years old. He got me to run the Boston Marathon. I ran the Boston Marathon seven times and finished.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, that’s fantastic. Congratulations.
SPEAKER 08 :
The highlight of my life was running the Boston Marathon with Wayne.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, that’s a neat story. Do you still run at all?
SPEAKER 08 :
I was running until a few years ago, then walking. Now I’ve got arthritis. If I didn’t have arthritis, I’d do my eighth marathon.
SPEAKER 07 :
But that’s what I think. That’s quite a story, Arthur. Well, let’s talk about your tour of duty, first in Africa. So what did that look like exactly?
SPEAKER 08 :
In Africa, they had a pandemic or epidemic of blue plague, the blue plague. And we couldn’t get off the ship and go ashore or do anything. It was miserable. It’s like the COVID did to me just recently. Couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. And that passed because the cats ate the rats that were distributing, spreading disease. And that was over. And then we moved to Maddalena, Italy. That’s between Corsica and Sardinia. And the only saving grace was it. Garibaldi’s buried there in the tomb. Believe me, it’s boring to go see it. I did. That was all there was to do on that island. And Garibaldi was the George Washington of Italy. Who cares? We were glad to get out of there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and what did the patrols look like? You said you would go out at night. Was it just your boat? Were you with other boats? What were those missions like?
SPEAKER 08 :
Three or more boats. The only time we went alone was when I put the James Bond types ashore. You know, I tell you, I often thought of this. We put people ashore and the looks on their face. You know, they you know, they weren’t going on. You know, they were going on the trouble and the danger. And the thing we never picked anybody up. Other people did. I figured maybe those guys are still there. If we if they’re waiting for us, they’re still there. That was one of my, and then we’d go out in groups of three. We used to like to get close together on patrol, so two boats looked like one on the enemy radar. And when we broke loose, we had the advantage. Surprise and speed.
SPEAKER 07 :
And did you have specific targets, specific missions, or what did that look like?
SPEAKER 08 :
Every night, every night we’d go to the corner for briefing. They’d show us where the targets were, what was moving, what to do. And at the bottom of that mission statement was, at the bottom of that statement, A piece of paper was the statement, go get them. PT folks was stressing offensive. We didn’t defend anything. We went out looking for trouble. We were unhappy or unsuccessful if we didn’t find something to drop a torpedo on. Even if it was an outhouse… As we get credit for destroying a German outhouse and a couple of seawalls. But what are you going to do? We didn’t want to bring those torpedoes home.
SPEAKER 07 :
So you had four torpedoes. So did you try to get rid of all of them each night?
SPEAKER 08 :
No, only when we had a target. If we sighted barges, we didn’t use torpedoes on barges, we’d get in close and use 40-millimeter machine guns on them. We would take them out with gunfire. Our mission was to blockade. One of our missions was to blockade Genoa Harbor, either sink them or send them back.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. And where were you based out of when you were trying to block Genoa Harbor?
SPEAKER 08 :
Antibes. Cape de Antibes between Cannes and Nice in southern France.
SPEAKER 07 :
How long did it take you to get over there?
SPEAKER 08 :
It took us two hours from the… Dark side to the target was usually about an hour and a half, two hours. We’d go out at full speed, and when we got to the target area, we’d slow down and throttle and send the sound into the water and patrol back and forth looking for targets. We had radar, which was a godsend. We could see them before they saw us. And the Americans are ingenious. I wish I did it. Somebody said, let’s get rid of the tubes. And let’s just drop the torpedoes into the water, have a lanyard set the motor going, and there’ll be no flash. Nobody would know we fired a torpedo. So with radar, we could see them before they saw us. And with the use of racks instead of tubes, we could put a fish in the water before they knew, the enemy knew that anyone even was shooting at them, targeting them. Very successful.
SPEAKER 07 :
Fascinating. And how many missions did you do, Arthur?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, we did about six months. I have to estimate it. We didn’t count them. About five a week, six a week. Six months. Six months, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Wow. Did you take fire from the enemy any time?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, listen, my baptismal fire, my first night on the boat, somebody threw a flare up at us. And of course, we’re in darkness. I could read the newspaper. It was so bright, my knees started shaking. So somebody was shining a spotlight on us, and my skipper, the brilliant, he was an old man of 26, but he was brilliant. We forgave him for being old. But anyway, he grabbed the signal light and signaled the password to the ship that was putting the light on us, and they turned the light off. Yeah. Yeah. Holy. Now, another night, we went out with the same thing. And it was, we got there when other boats had engaged the enemy, sunk them. There was water and flames and oil, you name it. The regular… situation. And I thought we were going to retire once we got our torpedoes unloaded. And the skipper said, we’re coming about. We’re going to pick up survivors. We picked up 26 Germans out of the water, put them on our boat, and some were bleeding, some were hurt, some were okay. It was something not to remember. And on the way back, I heard the skipper radio the base and say, returning to base, we need medics. And the MPs. The MPs that take care of the prison of the war. 26 kids. I remember. That’s what we saved. That’s my memory of the war. We saved 26. Not who we killed. How many we killed.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Arthur Frangello, this is absolutely fascinating. I’m talking with World War II veteran Art Frangello. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 02 :
God bless America, land that I love.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. We’ll continue the conversation here with Art Frangello, World War II veteran, six months on a PT boat patrolling the Mediterranean. And you just mentioned, Arthur, that you’d saved 26 Germans. I imagine it was so… active there. Do you remember looking into their eyes or their faces or anything as you were rescuing them or were you guys just so busy on what you were doing?
SPEAKER 08 :
I sure do. I had a kid on board, a kid about my age, a kid, yeah. And I looked in his eyes, and he looked like he was troubled. And we had to frisk him to make sure they didn’t have a knife or any kind of a weapon. And he took out and he showed me his wallet, and he showed me a picture in his wallet. It looked like his mother and father, his family, and his dog. And I said, I don’t want to kill those kids. If I made them a show, you know what I’d say to them? Hey, where are the girls? Let’s go get a beer. Where are the girls? I don’t want to kill anybody.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, I know. Didn’t want to kill anybody. Yeah, war is just, it is a terrible thing. But yet, you guys did, when duty called, you did what you needed to do. Tell us about some of the other patrols that you remember, Art Frangello.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, another patrol I was on, it was daylight. All stupid things were out in daylight, and I’m at the helm. And I see that we had to watch out for water mine, sea mine. And we’re going along the coast of Genoa, and I saw a mine, so I made a rough turn on the boat, spilled everybody over and stuff. And so when we recovered, the skipper says, well, we got to go back and shoot up that mine. I said I saw a mine, but it wasn’t a mine. It was a broomstick handle sticking out of the water. So the skipper said you did the right thing. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t hit it and then find out what it was, a broom or a bomb. That was fun. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
So another some other missions. Tell us about those.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, I was fortunate. On board boat, we had a kid named David Hampshire from Cape May, New Jersey. He could see at night. He was a gunner’s mate. He was on the stern one night, and he’s telling the skipper, I see a target coming at us. And the skipper says, I don’t have anything on the radar. Hampshire says, well, it’s coming. And the skipper didn’t do anything, and Hampshire starts screaming, it’s coming, it’s coming. The skipper says, well, shoot it. Shoot it. You got permission to fire. So, yeah. Yeah. The crew kept me alive. We had good people. I had a good team. They carried me.
SPEAKER 07 :
It sounds like you all did. Now, just clarify, you said that you had a tiger coming at you. So what was that? A target. Oh, a target. A target. Got it. Okay. Because sometimes there’s different names of things that I don’t know. That’s okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
Plus, I got the Boston accent.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER 08 :
What made me very happy is at Christmas, we all had plenty of money. We had a Christmas party for the kids in France and tea. We had a Christmas party. The toughest part of getting ready for the Christmas party was taking away the candy from the crybabies. They didn’t like giving up their ration, but they did it reluctantly. We had a big party for them.
SPEAKER 07 :
So what did you do? You went around to everybody and collected their candy so that you could give it to the kids?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, forcibly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Forcibly.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s the spirit. I think I could have got money away from Amnesia. No, they did okay. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I think it’s important that people understand that that had to be exceptionally special because the children there in France, I mean, a lot of them hadn’t seen candy for a number of years because France was occupied by the Germans.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. Correct. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Okay, so tell us about some of the other patrols that you were on.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m trying to think of a memorable one. One, we almost got into Genoa Harbor, and the part about this patrol was it was daylight. Daylight. And we could skip this. There’s funny things in the water sticking up, like buoys. So we got up close to one, and we did show the water start breaking around us. Shells were hitting the water around us. What the Germans had done was put a radar buoy out in the water, and they had its range fixed and ready. And when you get close to that buoy, they fire at you. So we made sure we let the challengers know that that’s what they were doing, playing games.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, go ahead. They were pretty tricky. They weren’t stupid.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and I think that that’s another thing that people need to understand is in World War II, the weaponry was not as sophisticated about locating targets. And so many times they would have to figure out the range of targets. of like mortar shells or artillery. And so the fact that they had a radar buoy there, I mean, that was kind of new for them. And so they had everything. They knew that if you were near there, they had everything so that they didn’t have to guess that they knew exactly where they were going to try to hit the target, correct?
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. I’ll tell you, my skipper had a maneuvering board, which was like a fancy slide rule, a circular slide rule. You put in the target speed, your speed, and you did all these things, and he missed every time. He says, the hell with that. From now on, I’m doing the old-fashioned way. I’m going on a collision course with the target. You could tell you were on a collision course because the angle that you kept taking on the bow of the other ship, that angle from your ship to their ship never changed. When that stayed the same for three times, he launched the torpedo in the water. At the same speed as the boat was going. And the torpedo would take over the collision route. And he got many hits that way. He never used a maneuvering board after that.
SPEAKER 07 :
He was a clever guy. And what was his name? Do you remember?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Lieutenant Spangenberg. He was an old man, much of 26. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, so you’re on this tour for six months, and it sounds like you were pretty successful. Did you guys lose any PT boats that you know of, any crew members?
SPEAKER 08 :
The first patrol we were on, we lost a 307 boat and my buddy that I went overseas with to a land, to a sea mine off the coast of Naples. That was quite a trauma. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, most definitely. So tell us a bit more about the people of Europe, because since you were able to dock the boats, tell us a little bit more about the people of Europe. Say that again, please. The people of Europe. So you said that you liked southern France because you were able to, you had time off during the day. But the people being liberated, I mean, did you see a difference? I mean, did they ever talk about being under German Nazi rule or anything like that?
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank God they honored us. They honored us. Yeah. I’ll tell you a true story about I got to France the first time from Italy to France. It seemed like forever. I got seasick. I wanted to die. I didn’t care if I fell in the water. I wouldn’t even try to swim. When we got to Antibes, my first time in Antibes, France, the skipper said to me, hey, get off this boat, go ashore until you get your collar back. You look like you died. So I’m walking up a dirt, well, not a dirt, a road in Antibes, France. And it was daytime. And the trees had grown across the road like a tunnel. And roses had grown in. And it smelled beautiful. It was beautiful. You know, I thought I died. I said, this must be heaven. I was daydreaming. And bam, I got knocked on my diddy by a girl on a bicycle. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great name. A great name on that.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’ll never forget her.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
Go ahead. Yep. Three nights later, I went on patrol for three nights in a row. I didn’t see anybody. When I came back, I walked up to the spot where she knocked me on my dip thumb ditty, and she was there with two bikes, one for me and one for her. And I was able to enjoy a bike ride. It was beautiful. Yep.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that’s pretty romantic, Arthur Frangelo. We’re going to go to break. I’m talking with a World War II veteran, Arthur Frangelo, about his time in World War II. And we’ll be right back. And Lauren Levy, there’s a lot going on out there in our world. And people still want to buy homes, stay in their homes. And reverse mortgages are a great tool to make that happen if people want to stay in their home and they’re 62 years or older, right? Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct. They allow people to access the equity in their home, which is typically their biggest investment that they have or their biggest asset that they have in their life.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Recently, when you were on the show, you mentioned that accessing that equity, it differs from age to age. So, it is kind of complicated, yes?
SPEAKER 04 :
It is. There’s a formula. I don’t even know how we have a software. It works like an actuarial chart in life insurance. The older you are, the more you can borrow. Um, and that’s simply sad as it is the same life insurance is cause you’re closer to the end.
SPEAKER 07 :
Um, I guess that will do it. So with that, are you seeing people use these reverse mortgages? Because I find it so interesting that people don’t have to pay income tax on it.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. We find people using them for a lot of reasons. I mean, there are people who will use them. We don’t have financial issues, but they’ll use them just to take money out to, for example, leverage life insurance, purchase life insurance, and get four or five times the amount they purchased to pass on to their children. But the biggest reason we see them is people are struggling a bit in retirement and want to retire. and they don’t have enough income. They can generate more income or pay off their current mortgage, which alleviates debt, pay off credit cards, pay off a lot of things to alleviate debt or monthly payments and be better off on their way. If people are getting squeezed, they should certainly give you a call.
SPEAKER 07 :
What’s your phone number?
SPEAKER 04 :
303-880-8881 is the best way to reach us.
SPEAKER 07 :
And, Lorne Levy, you have been a sponsor of both the shows, America’s Veterans Stories and The Kim Munson Show, for a number of years. And I greatly appreciate the partnership.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I appreciate it, too. It’s been great. And you do a lot of good things for a lot of good people.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, thank you. And it’s because of great people like you. I highly recommend Lorne Levy, 303-880-8881.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s 303-880-8881 Call now
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 02 :
From the mountains to the prairie.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And I’m talking with World War II veteran Arthur Fongelo about his time during World War II. And Arthur, you had mentioned that a girl on a bicycle ran into you, Simone Semay, and you became a sweetheart. So tell us, there’s more to the story.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, I’d meet her, I’d bring her a can of Spam. And we’d do the things daters do and stuff, you know. And it was beautiful. She showed me around different sites that I would have never, never realized. But don’t forget now, I used to go on patrol two or three days out of the week. Two or three days at a time. And then she got killed in her accident, yeah. That ended it. But I’ll tell you, that was when we were leaving France. When the war ended in France, they picked up our boats and they brought us back to the United States. Now, I’ll tell you a sad sight. When I left the United States in 1943-44, I saw the skyline of New York disappear on the horizon. You want to talk about a sick feeling in your stomach, not knowing if you’d get back in one piece or at all. And that was the end of the skyline. Coming back. I remember the skipper, we were guests on board, the boats and all on board a freighter. And my skipper said to the skipper or the freighter, if we can connect water hoses to close our artillery generator, we will start our radar and you’ll be able to see the skyline of New York City We went back to New York. You will be able to see the skyline of New York City on radar. And my skipper invited every person in that ship’s crew to look at the sights of New York skyline on the radar. And what a beautiful sight. What a happy sight. That I will remember forever. When the angels ask me to recall the greatest thrill of all, I will tell them, seeing the New York skyline again.
SPEAKER 07 :
That kind of takes my breath away. You shared a little bit more. I want to go back just a little bit to the story of Simone because you shared a little bit during the break that you returned from patrol and you were informed that she had been hit by a Jeep when she was on her bicycle and she died from those injuries. But you did something so thoughtful that I think you should share that with our listeners.
SPEAKER 08 :
About the dictionary?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, we had a dictionary that was from English to French and French to English. And we were on a date. She’d point to a word, I’d point to a word. Now, I’ll tell you, you don’t need a lot of words when you’re in love. You don’t need a lot of words. Gestures and so forth. Okay. So when I found out that she had passed… We were leaving France that week, so I got ahold of us. A shovel from a GI. They used for digging foxholes. He says, what are you doing? You’re in the Navy. I said, never mind. Just give it to me. I borrowed a box, the shovel and the Jeep and drove to the grave. And I dug a hole and I buried our dictionary and covered it over and said goodbye to him. My farewell. I’ll never forget it. Never.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, obviously.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s a lot to handle. The war was easier.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, I bet it was. OK, so you’re you come back to America when you got to New York. Was there a big welcome for you?
SPEAKER 08 :
There was nobody walking among us. We talked. We didn’t have to go through customers or anything. The first thing we did was walk up the street in New York and go in and say, we want a bottle of milk. And the store owner says, a bottle of milk? Where the hell you guys been? They don’t use bottles anymore. They’re cartons. So we said, well, give us a carton of milk. We missed milk. And we sat there drinking milk like drunken sailors would be drinking beer.
SPEAKER 07 :
Wow. And then when you went home to your family, what was that like?
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcoming people blessed us. I’ll tell you the sad part of returning home. There were a lot of casualties in the war. A lot of them make the headlines or the numbers and stuff. But the women, the mothers, like my mother. When I left home in 1943, she had black hair. When I returned, I saw a little old lady with white hair. She worried so much about her baby that she worried so much about me, I think it almost killed her. She was a casualty of the war, and that’s when I realized that there was a war, when I saw my mother.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I’ve thought a lot about it, about the people that were back home. Those that are serving, certainly it’s dangerous, but there’s training going into the battle or into these different missions. But the unknown, I think, is what you’re describing, and the unknown can certainly take a toll on people, Arthur Fongiolo.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, they were 14 on the boat. Seven were married. They went on liberty. They took a few pictures. That was it. Our single guys took all the liberty. The married guys were faithful to their wives and families. And I learned morals then. I said, these guys aren’t fooling around. They’re married. I realized when you get married, the game is over. You take flowers. That’s it. You know, you hold what’s sacred. But I was so happy to see the married guys were not fooling around.
SPEAKER 07 :
It sounds like, and you know, that’s one of the things that I found so interesting about World War II veterans. And I think it’s partly because you guys had to grow up. You were boys when you went in. You came out as men because you had seen so much and character, high character. I mean, it’s just pretty amazing. And that’s why I think that the World War II generation is referred to as the greatest generation.
SPEAKER 08 :
I feel flattered. Let me tell you about my first suit. My first suit, we grew up during the Depression. My first suit was Navy blues. I love that Navy blue uniform. Now, I want to tell you about the Navy blue uniform. The three white stripes on the column represent the three great naval battles, Lord Nelson, Medford, One for England. The two stars on that collar represent the king and queen of England. The 13 buttons on your fly represent the 13 original colonies. That uniform is the most scientifically designed uniform. The bell bottoms were used so you could roll them up and swab a deck without choking yourself and also use those bell bottoms for rotation gear. That uniform and the tie was for mourning the dead. I look at that uniform and it’s a history. We picked Germans out of the water with the three stripes on the collar and the two stars. The uniform was designed. Everyone copied England. We thought we sunk the English.
SPEAKER 07 :
I never knew that about the uniform.
SPEAKER 08 :
Most sailors in the Navy don’t know about that story about the uniform, but I do. And I spread it everywhere I can.
SPEAKER 07 :
I did not know that either. That is absolutely fascinating. So we’ve got just a few minutes left, Arthur. Any final stories that you want to share with our listeners?
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s about it. That’s about all I got, unless you have any more questions.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Well, I’d like to ask you, young people in America today, what is something that you would say to them after your vast experience of life?
SPEAKER 08 :
Get as much education as you can. It’s the tool to get through life. And learn manners. And learn your manners.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think that’s so important as well. We’ve gotten away from a society that has good manners.
SPEAKER 08 :
First of all, you know, be religious. Have a God. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and you said something during the break, and after we were talking about Simone Sommet during the break, and it sounds like your heart was breaking, but you said something about the unused portion. Do you remember what you said about that, Arthur Frangello?
SPEAKER 08 :
going to take the unused portion and return it to society. I don’t care whether it’s illness you get through, a divorce you get through, a job you lost. Those are all fleeting. Those are all fleeting. And never love anything that can’t love back. I never worshipped automobiles or anything at all. I like dogs and cats and people. But material things, I’m not too interested in them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Well, Arthur Frangello, this has just been absolutely fascinating. I so appreciate doing this interview with you and just amazing stories. So, Arthur Frangello, thank you so much.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you for inviting me. You’re welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. And my friends, these stories are so important to understand where we came from and to have the courage today to use our unused portion for good until we meet our maker. And so once again, this is such an honor to get to do this show. And my friends, God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m., here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
