'I was frightened to death': WWII veteran's war tales grip Wall students

WALL - Nearly 80 years after it happened, Matthew Yacovino has to fight back tears when telling the story. On Tuesday, you could hear a pin drip as the the 98-year-old World War II veteran told it to a gymnasium full of fourth- and fifth-graders.

Yacovino was a teenage waist gunner, operating a machine gun on the side of a PBY Catalina, an American seaplane bomber operating in France. His crew was waiting to take off from a foggy riverbed one morning, the second plane in line for a mission in the Bay of Biscay.

“When crew number one took off, it was so foggy that the plane hit a jetty and blew up,” he recalled. “Everyone got killed right in front of me.”

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Yacovino, who splits time between homes in Asbury Park and North Brunswick, paused to take a deep breath as he spoke to the kids at Allenwood Elementary School.

“These kids I had just had breakfast with got killed,” he said. “I can’t remember their names. I don’t know why. I have a block about it.”

Yacovino was telling his story at the behest of Wall police officer Michael Malone. A executive with the Best Defense Foundation, a national nonprofit that supports veterans, Malone spotted Yacovino wearing a World War II veterans cap on the boardwalk this past summer and invited him to visit the school the week of Veterans Day.

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“This is American history,” Malone told the students. “You guys will grow up one day and tell your kids that you heard from a World War II veteran in your school.”

As of late September, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, just 167,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are living. That’s 1%, and the number is falling by the day.

“It is imperative that their history and legacy is passed onto the next generation, especially at this critical point,” Malone told the Asbury Park Press. “This was the first time he spoke in front of a group of students. His words were extremely powerful.”

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'These people are out to kill me'

The son of Italian immigrants, Yacovino dropped out of Woodbridge High School to enlist in the Navy at age 17.

“It was a bunch of kids, 17 to 19 years old believe it or not — that’s who fought this war,” he told the students.

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His assignment was to man an aerial gun as his bomber sought German submarines to destroy. It didn’t take long for him to realize the danger of the mission. They’d be flying at a rate of 115 mph and no higher than 75 feet above the water.

“When I had planes shooting at me I was like, ‘Oh my God, these people are out to kill me,’” Yacovino said. “I was frightened to death.”

He said his crew disabled two submarines and caused another to surrender.

“I hate to say this, but they (the military) turned this 17-year-old kid into a killer,” he said.

Yacovino’s crew was aided by radar, which was developed at the Jersey Shore and gave Americans a decided edge in the air.

“With radar, as soon as we spotted (German) planes coming in, we knew we had to move,” he said. “Our best bet was to try to find a cloud in a hurry and disappear in a cloud.”

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On land, he said, life was spartan.

“I lived in a tent with a cot, we had no bathrooms, our latrine was a trench; it had lime in it,” he said. “Our showers were pipes with holes. If you wanted to take a shower, you walked outside naked and it was cold water — you either ran through it or walked through it.”

A student asked Yacovino if he killed anyone as a gunner.

“I shot at airplanes,” he replied. “I don’t know if I killed anyone or not. I don’t ever want to know.”

The last man standing

When the war in Europe ended, Yacovino began training to be a dive bomber in the Pacific Theater before the Japanese surrendered. He returned home in 1946, finished high school, went to Rutgers University on the GI Bill and became a professional engineer.

Along the way he married, raised four children, endured the passing of his wife, remarried and kept working full-time until he was 90 years old. After that, he served as a pro bono consultant, advising on building projects for free, right up until a few months ago.

“I wanted to help people,” he said. “I had to give back something.”

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Yacovino made an effort to stay in touch with his fellow service members. He told a story about how he accidentally fired 15 machine-gun rounds into the tail of his own plane.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I am getting court-martialed for sure,’” he said. “I called the sheet-metal shop. I knew the guys there, and a guy came out and patched the tail before they (superior offices) could find out.”

Fifty years later, at a 1995 reunion, “I hear a voice in the background: ‘Hey Yacovino, remember when you shot that tail?’” It was the repairman.

“He throws his arms around me and said, ‘I’m excited to see you,’” Yacovino said. “It was the greatest honor to have served with the best bunch of guys.”

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He believes he is the last living member of his squadron.

“Thank you,” Allenwood principal Erin O’Connell told Yacovino upon the assembly’s conclusion. “It’s the simplest and most meaningful thing we can say to you.”

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: WWII veteran shares war stories with Wall NJ students