listing/roster of Charleroi, Pennsylvania High School Graduates/Alumni


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    THE 40's and PRIOR
      Melvin Bassi, '44
      Hubert Braunegg, '42
      Bonnie Moss, '44 & John Cooper, '04
      Eleanor Pyzynski, '44
      Stewart 'Budd' Cole & Ed Palumbo, '38
      William 'Bill' Suzich, '48
      Floyd Holroyd, '44

Local veteran recalls mob scene at French V-E Day celebration... By Chris Buckley, Valley Independent, May 7, 2005
For Stewart "Budd" Cole, surviving a V-E Day celebration was nearly as harrowing as surviving World War II.

"We were in Fontainebleau, France, and there was a big public square there. It was the first time since the war began that they lit up Napoleon's chateau. These French Moroccans had been drinking and they were throwing these big knives around.

"I said to 'Nello, we've come so far. Let's get the hell out of here!" he said, recalling his advice for Dunlevy resident and fellow serviceman Nello Bartolotta, who also viewed the rowdy celebration.

Indeed, millions of servicemen had endured much to survive, let alone win, the war in Europe.

World War II veterans are marking the 60th anniversary this weekend of Victory in Europe Day -- the end of the war in Europe.

"It seems like yesterday that the war ended," Cole said.

Ed Palumbo, of Charleroi, recalls being stationed near the Autobahn on V-E Day.

"The Germans were surrendering so fast, we did not know where to put them," Palumbo said. "We didn't know the war was over. We didn't find out until two days later."

Palumbo said the soldiers were "very elated" to learn that the war was over. But because they were still on the move, there wasn't much time to celebrate.

Palumbo and Cole both graduated in the Charleroi High School Class of 1938.

Cole was drafted April 22, 1942. Having passed the medical examine, he was shipped straight from Pittsburgh to Indiantown Gap. He would not see Charleroi for nearly four years.

Turned down three times because of poor eyesight when he tried to volunteer for the service, Palumbo was finally drafted in July 1942.

Palumbo spent two years in England before D-Day. It was there that he met his future wife, Muriel Fisher. The couple had planned to marry, but the division chaplain suggested they wait because something big was brewing. That event was the D-Day invasion of France.

Palumbo was a member of the 116th Division, 29th Division. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he landed at Omaha Beach, Normandy, France.

"In four hours, I lost over 40 friends," Palumbo said.

Palumbo was wounded twice within a month of D-Day, taking shrapnel to the hand at St. Germaine, France, and in the leg at St. Lo, France.

For Cole, it literally was a world war. Attached to the allied headquarters for the European campaign, he saw Scotland, England, France, Belgium, Greece, Egypt, and Switzerland while traveling as an aide to Col. Charles Coleson.

"My orders usually said 'unknown destination,'" Cole recalled.

Cole's brother, Norman, was in Rheims, Germany, when the Germans surrendered to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. A member of the 18th division, Norman Cole fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

The Cole brothers were finally reunited in Paris.

"Someone came upstairs and said, 'Someone wants to see you,'" Budd Cole said. "It was him. I said 'you lost a lot of weight.'"

Even with the war over in Europe, the fighting dragged on in the South Pacific. Many, like Cole, had orders to join the anticipated invasion of Japan when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Aug. 6 and 9, 1945. Japan surrendered Sept. 6.

"Boy, what a relief that was," Cole said.

Norman Cole was back home about four months when his brother Budd finally arrived in Pennsylvania. Taking a train from Indiantown Gap, Budd Cole caught the last street car out of Pittsburgh. He arrived at the family's Fallowfield Avenue home at 1:30 a.m. Feb. 16, 1946.

Palumbo wasn't discharged until September 1946. He worked at Corning Glass, retiring in 1983.

Budd Cole worked for a couple of years at Corning Glass before moving on to the steel plant in Allenport, retiring from Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel in 1984. He still lives in the house he came home to after the war.

Norman Cole also worked at the Allenport Plant, retiring three months after his brother. He passed away nearly a decade ago.

Palumbo said he "closed my mind for 40 years" to the horrors of war he witnessed. During a 50th anniversary reunion with comrades, they began to talk about things they kept bottled up for a lifetime.

Budd Cole said the civil toll was especially difficult.

"When I was in Fontainebleau, France, the little kids would wait by our garbage cans to get the scraps of food we threw away," Cole said. "That was heartbreaking."

The most difficult task, Palumbo said, is speaking at Memorial Day events in the Valley.

"When I'm called upon to talk about all of the dead, that hurts," Palumbo said. "I remember all of the guys I served with who never made it back."

"All you have now is a million miles of memories," Cole added.

Chris Buckley can be reached at cbuckley@tribweb.com or (724) 684-2642.