In the summer of 1942, Dominick Frank Poliseno was inducted at Fort Niagara [Annotator's Note: near Youngstown, New York]. He did his basic training at Fort Bragg [Annotator's Note: Fort Bragg, North Carolina]. Poliseno was used to hard work, and knew how to hunt, so he had no difficulty acclimating to military life. He became a rifleman. During the war he graduated from an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] to a Tommy gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun]. He was a company runner, then a scout and assistant squad leader. He volunteered to become a Ranger [Annotator's Note: Army Ranger] and underwent such a rigorous training that there were times when he wanted to drop out. He went all through training with a man by the name of Joe Oleneck [Annotator's Note: Poliseno's spelling; unable to identify], but after they went into Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy], he never saw or heard of him again. Poliseno was not seasick on the journey [Annotator's Note: overseas to Europe]. The ship was crowded, and he had to wash with sticky seawater. When they arrived overseas, they just waited for orders. Poliseno was already trained as a combat engineer, but when he went into Ranger training, he was in the mountains and cliffs, learning armed and unarmed combat techniques. [Annotator's Note: Poliseno describes various methods of unarmed combat training.] The training was done with real weapons and live ammunition. He was in North Africa when he volunteered to be a Ranger. Poliseno was assigned to 3C [Annotator's Note: Company C, 3rd Ranger Battalion] when he went into combat in Sicily [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky, 9 July to 17 August 1943].

Dominick Frank Poliseno says that although the newer Rangers were trained by, and got along well enough with the older soldiers, the veterans didn't like to get friendly. Poliseno was with two 18 year olds who were killed in a slit trench near his foxhole on Hill 950, when an enemy aircraft dropped a personnel bomb. There was hardly anything identifiable left of the boys. Poliseno says they hadn't been adequately trained and were unwilling to take his advice about taking cover in separate foxholes. Poliseno described their mission along the mountain cliffs of Sicily, lined up from San Pietro [Annotator's Note: San Pietro Infine, Italy] to Hill 950, pushing the Germans off the mountain and moving toward Cassino [Annotator's Note: Monte Cassino, Italy], one mountain after another. At the last mountain, however, they were taken down to join the Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy] invasion forces. His unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 3rd Ranger Battalion] went to Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy], and bivouacked [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] there while they picked up new recruits. During the time he was in Naples, he went up to Vesuvius [Annotator's Note: Mount Vesuvius] and visited Pompeii [Annotator's Note: Pompeii, Italy]. In Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy], Poliseno sailed on English boats through stormy seas for the invasion. The Germans were using searchlights but couldn't see the Allies approach because the waves were obscuring the oncoming ships. They landed early in the morning, with the engineers and tanks behind them. The storm had piled sand over land mines that the soldiers crossed without incident, but when the tanks came ashore, the mines started going off. The engineers had to clear over 400 mines from the beach. Poliseno went ashore fully equipped and armed with an M-1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. The company faced machine gun fire from a concrete emplacement, which they eventually surrounded. Poliseno spoke Italian and called the frightened gunner out of his position, persuading him to surrender. He remembers encountering a set of frightened twin girls who had been told by the Germans that the Americans were going to scalp them. Poliseno learned through talking with them that the fascists had imprisoned their father. They got him released. His job as interpreter came naturally to Poliseno, as he had spoken Italian all his life. He feels he saved a lot of lives by exercising his linguistic abilities.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Dominick Frank Poliseno for specific incidents when his interpretive skills were utilized.] In Chiunzi Pass [Annotator's Note: Chiunzi Pass, Campania, Italy] an Italian citizen came into the camp and reported seeing about 400 Germans coming up behind the unit. The Rangers [Annotator's Note: 3rd Ranger Battalion] were able to position their troops and capture two German paratroopers who told them, under interrogation, about the forces approaching from the gulley. Poliseno talked routinely with the local Italians who helped the Americans know what was going on in the area. Poliseno often acted as an interpreter for soldiers who wanted to flirt with Italian girls. Personally, he had no trouble speaking with the ladies, and he had a lot of girlfriends. Although there were others of Italian heritage in his unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 3rd Ranger Battalion], Poliseno was the only one fluent in the language.

Dominick Frank Poliseno says that many of the Italians wanted to run from combat. Their little tanks were easy to knock out. His unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 3rd Ranger Battalion] fought through the small towns and villages, and advanced to Licata [Annotator's Note: Licata, Sicily, Italy]. They continued up the coast, and chased the Germans up the mountains, winding up in Palermo [Annotator's Note: Palermo, Italy]. Then the unit moved across country to Porto Empedocle [Annotator's Note: Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Italy], where the German and Italian artillery was positioned facing the waterfront. They attacked them from the rear. They captured about 150 German paratroopers right inside their barracks. They also captured about 500 Italians there. There was a Navy ship shelling over the heads of the Rangers, and an airplane dropping leaflets telling the civilians to vacate. Some of the GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier] went down to the beach and formed the initials USA with empty oil drums, and the pilot of the aircraft relayed a message to the ship to stop firing. The Rangers were still in pretty good shape at that point. The unit had also captured around 250 prisoners on a plateau along the way. The leader of the enemy troops on the plateau shouted, in Italian, for the Rangers to withdraw, or they would open fire. Poliseno translated for his superior, who had the mortars set up to attack, then ordered Poliseno to shout back that the Italians had to surrender or suffer attack. Within five minutes, they started coming out. Poliseno warned them not to run, but two attempted to escape, and they were shot. Nobody else tried to run. In the enemy camp there were stacks of beans and macaroni and a cheese as big as a wagon wheel. The GIs feasted. The Rangers left all their captives for the infantry to deal with, boarded trucks, and went up Mount Etna. They chased the Germans to Messina [Annotator's Note: Messina, Italy] where Poliseno was asked, once again, to interpret. They picked up another 100 prisoners and held them overnight while the engineers built a bridge to replace the one the Germans had blown out. Then the Rangers scouted the place out so that Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] himself could come in with his pearl handled pistols. Poliseno drove the coast road in a jeep, moving at varying speeds so the snipers, who were shooting at him, couldn't get the range. Rocks ricocheting from the shots kept hitting his vehicle. When the Germans started shelling the town, they hit the graveyards, and caskets and bodies were being exhumed. After leaving Messina, the unit went on to Corleone [Annotator's Note: Corleone, Italy], a cold town that didn't want the Americans there at all. The bars wouldn't serve them. But one helpful man told Poliseno that the Americans should drink wine and eat onions to prevent malaria [Annotator's Note: mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite], which was prevalent in the area.

Dominick Frank Poliseno compares his first amphibious landing in Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy] to the second landing at Maiori [Annotator's Note: Maiori, Italy], and says the weather was better the second time. It was an easy landing. They [Annotator's Note: 3rd Ranger Battalion] proceeded up the mountain to the Chiunzi Pass [Annotator's Note: Chiunzi Pass, Campania, Italy], meeting a small party of Germans along the way, and wiping them out. At the top, the Rangers lined up along the ridges and waited for the rest of the Americans troops to land at Salerno [Annotator's Note: Salerno, Italy]. There were German convoys going between Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy] and Salerno, and the Rangers used their half-tracks [Annotator's Note: M3 half-track; a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] to knock them out. That gave the American position away, and the Germans began pursuing them up the mountain. Poliseno says there were nine counterattacks. At one point, a mortar shell landed right next to him. His ears were out for a while, but nobody got hit. They held the pass for about a week, until the Americans broke through at Salerno. From there the next major stop was at Naples where they bivouacked [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] in pup tents in the botanical gardens. Then they prepared for the invasion at Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy]. When they left Naples, they waited at a beach resort area [Annotator's Note: pronunciation unclear], training and accumulating new recruits. Poliseno's job was to help break-in the green [Annotator's Note: inexperienced] soldiers. The training was only marginally successful.

Dominick Frank Poliseno was in an area of trees, brush and high grass, and he entered an abandoned house, sat in a chair, and fell asleep [Annotator's Note: in Cisterna, Italy]. He was awakened by a noise, and when he looked out, there were Germans marching prisoners up the road. They were Rangers, and the Germans made it known that if they were fired upon, they would kill the prisoners. A German paratrooper was backing up to the door where Poliseno stood with his Tommy gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun] at the ready. A Ranger sergeant on the road saw him, and yelled, "don't shoot him. They'll kill us. Give up." After calculating his chances, Poliseno went inside, hid his weapon, and went out, bringing a wounded man with him. He hated to surrender but felt it his best option. The Germans marched their prisoners into the town of Cisterna, then to a castle which Poliseno visited after the war, and then to a camp near Florence [Annotator's Note: Florence, Italy]. After about two weeks, Poliseno was moved by train to another camp. From VII-A [Annotator's Note: Stalag VII A in Moosburg, Germany] he went to II-B [Annotator's Note: Stalag II-B near Hammerstein, Pomerania, now Poland]. The trip was cold and crowded and Poliseno's feet turned blue. There was one can the men used for toilet facilities, and they had no food or water while they traveled. While he was in the camp, Poliseno got diphtheria [Annotator's Note: acute, contagious bacterial disease], and was in the infirmary for two months. He remained among men he knew from his Ranger unit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 3rd Ranger Battalion]. The men lived in barracks and slept in bunk beds covered with straw sacks. There was very little heat from a coal stove, and food rations were meager. Many of the men were taken on daily work details, which continued regardless of the weather. The prisoners fashioned their own cold weather garments. The compound was enclosed in barbed-wire fencing. Poliseno said the guards weren't too bad, but the prisoners worked, cutting trees, from sunup to sundown.

Dominick Frank Poliseno saved some letters from his time as a prisoner of war that he shares with people who show interest. The Germans censored all the mail that he wrote from the prison camp. The commandant of the camp was nicknamed Squeaky, and once told Poliseno that he was smoking an American cigar that his son, a German prisoner in the United States, had sent him. Poliseno felt the commandant was kinder to the prisoners because his son was being well treated in America. Poliseno spent 15 months in the camp and was moved in May 1945. When the Russians and Americans were getting close, the Germans marched the prisoners away from the camp, keeping them on the snowy roads and fields, with little to eat or drink. It was rough. He climbed through the transom of a farm building to get potatoes for the men to eat. He also begged pancakes at a family home and suffered from overeating the rich food. The SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] followed the marching prisoners to ensure that no one lagged behind or escaped.

The Germans brought Dominic Frank Poliseno and his fellow prisoners to a camp in Brandenburg [Annotator's Note: Stalag III-A, Luckenwalde, Brandenburg, Germany], and the Russians were shelling the area. The guards were packing up and leaving. Poliseno and five other guys decided to attempt an escape in the direction of the Russian lines. They ran into a Russian patrol and were directed to a nearby town. Along the way, they were fed by another group of Russians, and had a mobile shower. Afterward they continued on their way toward the town, and in the rail yard they stole a push car. They made a couple of stops along the way, and even portaged the push car around blown out rail bridges. They ended up in a little town outside of Hamburg [Annotator's Note: Hamburg, Germany], where they met a couple of Jews from a concentration camp and helped them regain possession of their home. They crossed the Elbe River and joined an American camp where they cleaned up, got deloused and were issued new uniforms. The next day they flew to La Havre, France to be shipped back to the United States. Getting back into American-held territory was like being reborn. While they were in the American camp, they were warned against fraternizing with the treacherous German women and children among the local population.

Once he was discharged and got home, Dominick Frank Poliseno could not go out for two weeks. He didn't want to meet people who asked questions, and he didn't want to talk about being in a camp. After a while, a neighbor, who had been a major in the artillery, took him to the corner bar for a drink. Poliseno met a pretty Irish girl, and fell in love with her, but he eventually learned that she was married to a Navy man, and had two children, so they split up. He later married, but the relationship didn't work out. He continued to avoid the topic of the war and his experiences in prison camp but did not consult a doctor or seek counseling about his condition. He remembers being nervous about being within the barbed wire fences where he worked, and the day he saw red [Annotator's Note: slang for getting angry] when his supervisor made a remark about his not being in prison camp anymore. He dropped a three-ton boom very close to where the man was standing. He retired from there and went to work for Coca-Cola [Annotator's Note: The Coca-Cola Company], where things got better for him in a calmer atmosphere, and there were no fences. He became a union shop steward, and finally retired from the company in 1986. He now goes to counseling where students study prisoners of war and the effects of stress.

Dominick Frank Poliseno was born in 1918 in Pennsylvania [Annotator's Note: Sharpsville, Pennsylvania]. His father was a mill worker, and his mother sold fruit and homemade liquors. His family had a farm in the country where he was involved in a raid by rival bootleggers. The second of six children, he had to go to work in a Bethlehem Steel [Annotator's Note: Bethlehem Steel Corporation, shipbuilding company] mill before he graduated high school. He worked there for 37 and a half years before retiring and taking a job with Coca-Cola [Annotator's Note: The Coca-Cola Company] that lasted until 1986. At the steel mill he worked as a laborer, and thinks he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] by word of mouth. As he was the only person in his family earning an income, and had a mortgage to pay, he did not feel any particular interest in joining the military. In 1942 Poliseno was drafted, and although he would have liked to be in the Air Corps, he didn't have the education, and ended up in the regular Army. As it turned out, Poliseno was captured 40 miles from where his parents' families had originated in the old country, near Cisterna [Annotator's Note: Cisterna, Italy]. Poliseno spoke fluent Italian and served as an interpreter during the war.