A wall of John and Rita DiClemente’s Hollis living room is filled with family portraits, some recent and others decades old, with many of them featuring someone in a military uniform.

During World War II, DiClemente participated in the Normandy Invasion and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Rita was in the Air Force in the 1950s and three of their four adult children have served in the military, so it’s no surprise Memorial Day holds special meaning to them.

Rita wanted an education

When asked why she decided to join the Air Force, Rita gave a very straightforward response:

“I was dumb and I quit school,” she explained. She held a series of menial jobs, including working at a laundry service cleaning diapers, when she decided to do something more with her life.

“I had a friend who had joined (the Air Force) and loved it,” she said. “She wanted me to join and I said no. She flew home one time to Hanscomb and I saw all the respect she got and changed my mind. I wanted an education.”

Rita attended basic training at Lackland AFB in Texas, and completed secretarial classes at the Frances E. Warren School in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1955. She was sent to the base at Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, N.Y., and worked at a transport station at Fort Hamilton, where she processed paperwork for families who were heading overseas.

“The training I got in the Air Force was great and it helped me get a decent job,” she said.

After her two year stint in the Air Force was over, she moved back to Woburn, Mass., where she worked in the office of a machine shop. That is where she met her husband, John, who grew up in Watertown and returned to the area after serving in the army.

John couldn’t wait
to enlist

“When Pearl Harbor was attacked, I was 16 years old,” John recalled recently.

“My friends and I all went to the Marine recruiting station, but I was color blind so no one would take me except the army.”

He had to wait until he turned 18 before enlisting, and after initial training at Fort Devens, he travelled to Fort Eustis, Va. for communication school and artillery skills, and graduated in 1943.

In November 1943 John was stationed on the Queen Elizabeth.

“What a tremendous ship that was,” he said. “There were 15,000 troops on board, you could see land, the girls were waving and then I realized we were pulling away. I didn’t leave that deck till I couldn’t see the Statue of Liberty anymore.”

John’s time on the ship was spent dodging Nazi submarines in the waters around Scotland. He didn’t know anything about guns, but had two weeks to learn and became a gunner. He spent six months in England and leading up to the Normandy Invasion.

“No one knew where we were going or that it was an invasion,” he said. “We were halfway across and got the jitters. There were planes going over the channel and so many ships you could actually walk across. We landed on bloody Omaha Beach at 10 a.m. I had the training and had to man the guns. All I could think was ‘God forgive me for what I’m about to do.’”

John arrived in France, and encountered snipers while on leave in Paris, which had just been liberated. He then went to Belgium, where he encountered “Buzz Bomb Alley,” low-flying German planes dropping their payloads.

Battle of the Bulge

A major turning point in the war occurred on December 16, 1943 in the Battle of the Bulge. More lives were lost during the Battle of the Bulge than at Normandy.

John’s tone darkened as he described how soldiers were there for a month with no food or supplies, eating rabbits, chickens and anything else they could find in order to survive. It was freezing cold, and he worried about losing his toes to frostbite.

“I thought I was going to die there,” he admitted. He lost everything he had, except the clothes on his back and his rifle. The B24s finally dropped supplies to the troops.

After the war ended, he boarded a ship in Marseille France to return to the US, a journey that took 11 days.

John and Rita have been married 52 years and raised their four children in Hudson. Their daughter, Andrea, is a professional figure skater, and all three of their sons have followed in their footsteps and joined the military – Keith served three years in the Marines, John Jr. served four years in the Navy, and Michael had a 23-year career in the Coast Guard.

Michael’s son, Michael Jr., is currently on active duty in the Marines and will be leaving for Japan soon. The DiClementes have nine grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and several step-
great-grandchildren.

Thanks
from a stranger

Together they shared the story of how they were in a restaurant a few years ago, when they were approached by a stranger.

The man had noticed John’s Battle of the Bulge hat, and insisted on meeting him. The man broke down in tears as he told how he had been a boy in Normandy during the invasion and had been unable to evacuate.

A German soldier put him in the cellar of a house and stood guard so the house wouldn’t be bombed.

When the invasion was over, the boy was safe but his protector had been killed. He told John that he had always wanted to find a survivor of that day just to say thank you.

John and Rita were very moved by the gesture, and a new friendship was forged.

Although many others returned to Normandy for the 50th anniversary of the invasion in 1993, John said he had no desire to revisit that place. However, he and Rita did go on an Honor Flight to see the war memorials in Washington, D.C.

Rita said watching her husband moved to tears at the memorials brought her a new level of understanding what he had been through during the war.

Rita was asked to speak during Memorial Day ceremonies in 2009 and drew upon that visit to explain the significance of the holiday.

John also participates in ceremonies by speaking at the local schools.