'He was my hero': Recalling the life and times of Joe George, a grizzled war veteran by the age of 20
Dominion PostMar 19, 2024
Mar. 19—Christmas Eve, 1944, the English Channel.
More than 2, 000 American and British servicemen were shoulder-to-shoulder on the overloaded Leopoldville, a 500-foot, 11-ton, Belgian passenger liner reconfigured as a troop ship.
When the torpedo from the German U-boat hit, the top-heavy ship lurched.
Then, it began to sink, and collapse in on itself, at the same time.
At least 700 soldiers suddenly found themselves in frigid waters—and dire straits.
The Germans, as it turned out, were the least of their worries.
Many of those soldiers would drown, pulled under by the weight of their combat gear.
Some, ironically, would be crushed to death against the hull of the now-ruined Leopoldville and another Royal cruiser that homed in for a rescue.
And still others would succumb to the effects of hypothermia.
With his teeth chattering,
"Ya need help, Yank ?"
"No, " he said, still looking into the sea and its tumult of wailing, flailing shipmates.
"Don't worry about me. Worry about them."
He was 19 years old.
Greetings Family and friends of George, who died three weeks ago at the age of 98, weren't surprised by the unselfish nature—even in a wartime, worst-case scenario.
After all, they said, that's just how the son of Syrian immigrants who was born in
George was 4 years old when the stock market crashed in 1929.
Like every one of that generation, his formative years were defined by the Depression.
He was the seventh of
If you gave your word,
You were honor-bound.
That's what their son did in January of 1944, when he raised his hand to defend his country.
He was in his senior year at
"I was an American, and that was what you did when you got the call, " George told
Still, he was honest.
He couldn't help but show his famous gap-toothed smile, as he recalled reading the missive ordering him to the induction center.
"I thought the war would be over before I got into anything, " he said.
"I was a little wrong about that."
A lot wrong, as it turned out.
No war stories Just hours after his rescue from the English Channel, he was dug in, with a dry uniform and rifle barrel, white-hot.
George and his fellow Leopoldville survivors from
The 66th knocked back a heavy German attack at La Croix, in northwestern
That kid from
"I was scared and worried the whole time, " he said.
It's that honesty that most impresses Robert, the first of his five sons who is now a professor at
"He showed me that you didn't have to be mean and aggressive to be brave and tough, " the professor said.
"He was humble. He was gentle."
The lives worth fighting for ...
After the war,
He went to work for a
George would found a number of successful businesses while he and Catherine raised their five boys in a comfortable wood-frame house in
When he did brag, it was on his boys.
Between the five, they collectively hold graduate degrees from Oxford,
As
In 2010, it came time to brag on the patriarch.
"Dad was proud when he got the medal, " Robert said.
Displaying it, though, was another story.
"We couldn't get him to wear it, " the son said.
"He'd always say, 'There are soldiers buried in Normandy who should have gotten this. I was just lucky.'"
Not that he didn't wear his uniform with its sergeant's stripes for special occasions.
On
"I'll go as long as my legs will take me, " he said as an 85-year-old in 2011.
This past
A private service followed last Thursday at the family cemetery in
That includes immigrant families that watched their sons ship out to defend their new country.
And the daughters who marched off to the factories to become Rosie the Riveters.
"Look at what they did, " he said.
"My dad was my hero."
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