By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com
Seven decades ago, Andrew J. Orloski, 91, was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. He was 21. The year was 1942.
Orloski grew up in Burnham, Pa., which is 30 miles from Penn State and about 60 miles northwest of Harrisburg. Upon his return home from the service, he would work in the steel mill.
Later, he would move to this area and work at U.S. Steel – Fairless Works as the second helper at the open hearth. He lives in Fairless Hills.
When Orloski was drafted, he was the sole supporter of his Polish mother who could not speak English. He is first generation American. His sister would take care of her mother in his absence.
After he left, his mother was known to lie down on the ground and pray that her son would return to Burnham safely.
Orloski does not talk much about the flesh wound he got in his shoulder while he was in Italy. But when he does, there’s often a joke behind it.
There was a big hole in his jacket. “One of the soldiers said, ‘Were you in that?” I said, ‘Yes, I was in that when it happened.’”
He does tell the story seriously. “I was on a hillside,” Orloski said. “I was sitting down, taking my rifle apart and I was cleaning it. A shell came over and exploded and tore a big hole in my shoulder in the back.”
Orloski was given The Purple Heart.
He has other medals: the European African Middle Eastern Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal.
“One time I was up on top of the hill,” Orloski said. “I was on the downside and I was sitting there and I heard the Germans firing way down in the valley and I saw three shells go over the top and down in another valley. They were behind me. They were firing at some of our troops that were in front of me.”
When Orloski went in the service, he was a private. He reached the rank of sergeant. He was honorably discharged in 1945.
Boot camp was in South Carolina near Spartanburg, Va. He then went to Camp Edwards in Massachusetts. “I joined the 36th Division – that was the Texas National Guard – there were a lot of Texans!” he said.
From Massachusetts he was sent down to Virginia to get mountain training. “We did a lot in the mountains -- up and down,” he laughed. “I just carried a rifle. I was in the 60 millimeter mortar…It’s a tube and there’s a base plate. You drop a shell and it goes up way far and drops on the enemy.
“We went overseas from New York,” he continued. “We landed in Oran, Algeria in North Africa near Morocco and Libya. We just did some more training there.
“Then we got on a convoy and we made the landing in Salerno, Italy near Naples – about 30 miles south of Rome,” Orloski said. “We made the landing. You had to get off those little boats. We got in the water.
“We got on the beach,” he continued. “We walked a little bit and BOOM!! I hit the dirt. It was another BOOM!! A tank was shooting at our ship.”
They kept going. “We cut across a big field,” Orloski said.
“There were a lot of big black cattle. They started attacking our guys. We started shooting them.
“We kept on going,” he continued. “We went up the hills and then we saw the tank shooting the people who were doing the landing. Some of our guys started shooting at the tank.
“I remember once we were up in the mountains and I could hear those bombers that bombed the abbey at Monte Casino,” Orloski recalled.
Later on, they were near Rome. “We fired the 60 millimeter mortars there before we got to Rome,” he said. “When we conquered Rome, that’s when they made the big landing in Normandy. We were glad.”
“They sent us to relieve Patton’s Army so he could relieve Bastogne,” he said. “It was an important village. There were different crossroads. It was like in a forest -- The Ardennes.”
Among the many photographs of his service days, Orloski has a Christmas card from 1944 that he sent to his mother, Anastasia, from France. His wife just ran across the treasure this last year.
Orloski and his wife, Cecelia, have three sons: Andy Jr., Stephen and Perry.
One of their grandchildren, Anastasia, is in the U.S. Air Force and is stationed in Alaska.
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