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Aaron Elson's avatar

Funny you should mention LST 507. In 1994 I interviewed Angelo Crapanzano, a motor machinist's mate who was the only person to get out of the engine room alive when the LST was torpedoed. After posting the interview on my web site, it was read by the daughter of Patsy J. Giacchi, who was one of the few members of the quartermaster battalion to escape, and contacted me. A week later I interviewed Patsy, and it turned out he and Angelo lived only a few miles apart in New Jersey, so I got the two of them together and interviewed them both! Many of the Army personnel who escaped the burning ship drowned because they didn't know how to wear their life preservers. Angelo's interview is available in my book "A Mile in Their Shoes," and Patsy's interview is in my follow-up book, Nine Lives: An Oral History. Both men wound up taking part in the D-Day invasion, Angelo on another LST and Patsy reassigned to the 94th Quartermaster Railhead Battalion. Both were told never to talk about Exercise Tiger. Patsy didn't talk about it until I interviewed him in 1994 and Angelo, who was awarded a Bronze Star, didn't speak about it until 20 / 20 did an expose on it. Both interviews are online. Patsy had a girlfriend, Emily, whom he later married. I'm not sure when Angelo met his wife, Ida.

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