Leesburg veteran of WWII dies at 98. ‘This man was such a fighter’
He was an immigrant who ended up fighting in the bloodiest American battle of the Second World War and was one of the few members of his unit to survive. A man short in stature but large in personality, he lived a long, happy life with his family after retiring from his much-decorated service.
John Paul Bellefontaine, of Leesburg, died on May 28, just one day before Memorial Day. He was 98 years old and believed to be one of the last two living members of his unit.
“I’ve never seen anybody like him,” said his daughter, Deborah Fike.
“He’s a little bitty guy and very, very tough,” she added. “But gentle too, at the same time, you know, and he is very much a perfectionist. Like everything has to be done, right. He couldn’t take anything out of place.”
Born Jean Paul Louis LeBlanc Bellefontaine on March 2, 1925, he was a native of Montreal, Canada. His family immigrated to America in 1942 when he was 17. According to Fike, the family left Canada for Florida simply because it was too cold, ultimately making St. Petersburg their new home.
Disagreements with his father led Bellefontaine to enlist in the military in 1943, only one year after arriving in America.
Bellefontaine wanted to be a pilot but, at around five feet tall, he was disqualified from pilot training. He instead enlisted in the U.S. Army, training to become a paratrooper, and was assigned to the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion.
On April 21st, 1944, Bellefontaine began a 33-day voyage to Italy aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which came under assault from German bomber planes.
That August, the 551st participated in Operation Dragoon, the Allied landing in southeastern France, eventually liberating the city of Nice. Due to his upbringing in Montreal, French was Bellefontaine’s first language, and so he was made a translator for American forces while in France and Belgium.
In December, Bellefontaine would become embroiled in the bloodiest battle the United States was involved in during the war – the Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s desperate last-ditch surprise counteroffensive through the Ardennes Forest between Belgium and Luxembourg meant to stave off defeat on the Western Front.
The 551st were sent to capture the German-held Belgian village of Rochelinval without any support, a mission they successfully completed at the cost of most of the unit’s remaining lives.
Although Bellefontaine was one of the lucky men to survive the battle, he suffered lifelong health complications to his feet due to the deep snow, resulting in him developing gangrene toward the end of his life.
In early 1945, the remaining members of the 551st were absorbed into the 82nd Airborne Division. John remained in the Army, serving a total of 20 years, ultimately achieving the rank of Chief Warrant Officer.
“He was very gentle, but he was very much a bossy person,” Fike said. “Like he’s used to ordering everybody around. So being a Chief Warrant Officer, he likes to tell us all orders. He wouldn’t wait for me to take the trash out. I said, ‘Dad, five minutes, give me.’ He wouldn’t wait five minutes. He would start to do it on his own.”
He received numerous accolades, including the Bronze Star of Valor and the Presidential Unit Citation, the latter of which was awarded to all members of the 551st in 2001.
Bellefontaine was waiting to receive the Legion of Honor medal from France when he passed.
His eldest son and child, Yannick Bellefontaine, says his father didn’t like to talk about his service at first.
“He was proud of what he accomplished,” Yannick said. “But at first when I talked to him about wanting to be honored now he said, because he was humble, ‘I don’t know why they want to honor me. You know, I was just over there. It’s not like my choice really.’ But I said, ‘Well, Dad, you know, you sacrificed a lot for the rest of us here.’”
After the war, while still stationed in France, John Bellefontaine met his first wife, Henriette, a native of France. Bellefontaine and a friend were driving down a road when they noticed two women: Henriette and a friend, who had missed a train they intended to catch. Bellefontaine and his friend offered to take the two women to their destination.
The two married and had three children: sons Yannick and Steve and daughter Deborah.
After his retirement, Bellefontaine became an electronic communications engineer in the Army Civil Service, with his education being provided for under the G.I. Bill of Rights. One of his posts was at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey.
Bellefontaine had multiple health problems in his later years, including multiple forms of cancer.
“The guy couldn’t walk for the past 10 years,” Fike said. “He’s been driving around a little scooter. He had prostate cancer, bladder cancer and had three hip replacements. The last hip exploded. He had MRSA, he had sepsis. I said, ‘Dad, you’re a cat with nine lives.’ I mean, this man was such a fighter.”
John ultimately passed away due to prostate cancer.
Despite his many ailments, Bellefontaine persevered through them with his signature stubbornness.
“That contributed to a long life,” said his second son, Steve Bellefontaine . “He never really stopped moving. He never took naps, even in his 80s, he rarely took a nap. So he was constantly moving. That constant desire to keep moving and a very sharp mind, he remembered a lot of things from even in his 80s, early 90s, things from when we were younger. So he kind of had the brain power, the will, the desire to live and a little bit of a stubborn streak.”
Steve Bellefontaine fulfilled his father’s dream of becoming a pilot, serving in the Air Force. After he retired, he became a pilot for American Airlines.
In 2018, American Airlines partnered with the Gary Sinise Foundation, established by actor and veterans advocate Gary Sinise, who portrayed Lieutenant Dan in “Forrest Gump”, in the Soaring Valor program, meant to transport World War II veterans to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
Steve Bellefontaine volunteered to serve as a pilot in the program so he could personally transport his father to go to the museum alongside 39 other veterans.
“I told the Foundation and American that I wanted to be the guy that flew them over and have them, you know, bring my dad. So it’s officially 39 veterans and my dad, which you know, he was invited only because I was flying them over there. So, yeah, it’s an opportunity that I kind of took to be able to not only take those guys, but take my dad over there. It was one of those bucket lists that I felt like that opportunity I couldn’t pass by so I’m glad I did it.”
John Bellefontaine was able to meet Sinise at the event. Sinise wrote a letter to John’s family after his passing.
With his typical stubbornness, the elder Bellefontaine initially didn’t want to go on the trip. But after he went, he asked his pilot son if he could go again.
Yannick Bellefontaine described his father as a simple, hardworking man.
“After the experiences that he had as a child, the facts of the war, going through all that, I think he was looking to live, enjoy more out of life, just simple things,” he said. “He was a dad who worked very hard to provide for his family. Somebody who just didn’t have a bad bone in his body, you know, never, never judged people, never gossiped about people, anything like that.”
Yannick Bellefontaine spoke about one of his favorite family traditions with his father.
“When he was in his 80s and early 90s, I lived in South Carolina and Tennessee and he lived in Florida,” he recalled. “We would meet halfway like in Pooler or Savannah. He would drive three-and-a-half hours at 90 years old, meet us for lunch for an hour or two, and then he turned around, go back home.”
John Bellefontaine loved animals, especially dogs, and cars. He purchased a new car every year, usually after trading the previous one in. Fike believes he bought around 60 during his lifetime. He also loved to make art.
Bellefontaine is survived by Henriette and his second wife, Patricia; his three children; his stepdaughter Anne Marie; his ten grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
The funeral is to take place at Allen J. Harden Funeral Home in Mount Dora on the morning of June 23. Bellefontaine will be buried with honors at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell that afternoon.
