LI vets get long-awaited medals for Normandy campaign
Hugh C. Clarke receives the Jubilee of Liberty Medal, Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and Honorable Service Lapel Button with congratulations from Col. William Stratemeier and Congressman Tim Bishop. (Aug. 21, 2010) Credit: Liz Malone
They rebuilt railroads and repaired bridges, moved supplies and serviced the tanks and airplanes vital to the ultimate assaults on Germany.
And together Saturday, a small group of World War II veterans and their families came to the American Legion hall in Patchogue to get medals they earned in Normandy in 1944.
In what could be one of the last such ceremonies of its kind on Long Island, nine servicemen who earned the special Jubilee of Liberty medal, created by the Regional Council of Normandy, France, were honored Saturday. Three of the nine awards were given out posthumously.
About 350 local veterans of the Normandy campaign have gotten the award, and the Long Island Chapter of the Air Force Association - which has sponsored those ceremonies since the medal was first awarded in 1994 - believes it has found most of the still-living survivors of the invasion of Europe.
"The veterans are getting up in age . . . the ones we find are by word-of-mouth," said Col. William Stratemeier, president of the chapter.
None of those honored Saturday were in the first assault waves on the beach - the Normandy campaign ran from D-Day, June 6, to September - but many of them went on to fight in northern France, the Rhineland and in the Ardennes offensive.
Hugh C. Clarke, 92, born in Sag Harbor and now living in Stony Brook, was a technical sergeant in the Army's 1314th Engineer Regiment, doing the survey work needed before roads and other structures could be rebuilt as the U.S. Army moved toward Germany.
As well as the French medal, Clarke and several of the veterans present Saturday also received other U.S. military awards they had never gotten from the service. Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) presented the medals.
Sitting next to his wife, Naomi, and one of his daughters, Clarke said he was rarely in danger, since his work was done after the Germans had been pushed back. "It wasn't until the Germans returned that it was dangerous," he said.
Dorothy Cuomo, 82, of Rocky Point, was there to receive the awards for her husband, Neil, an Army Air Forces private who died on Veterans Day two years ago at age 94.
Describing the honors as a "bittersweet" experience, she said her husband would never talk about his war experience, but was so affected by it that the couple traveled every year to Hawaii to see the USS Arizona war memorial. "We bought a timeshare there," she said.
Stratemeier, a former commander of the New York Air National Guard's 106th Rescue Wing in Westhampton Beach, said getting the medal has deep meaning to the elderly veterans. "It's very special. It's very emotional. You can read it in their faces," he said. "They remember the experiences they went through."
