Dominick Sgobbo was born in October 1924 in East Harlem, New York City, New York. The fifth of eight children of Italian immigrants, he was a member of the Boys Club of New York and the PAL [Annotator's Note: Police Athletic League youth organization], which he credits with keeping him straight. He started trade school to learn to be a machinist, because he knew the war was coming and he wanted to get a good job, but had to leave school to help support his family. He worked in the Garment District for 11 dollars a week until he joined the Army. The Sunday that Pearl Harbor was attacked, Sgobbo was on a date at Coney Island, and got home late. The next morning he saw the headlines on the newsstand, and didn't know what it was about. An older friend explained it all, and Sgobbo remembers the news reels at the movies tracking current events in the war. It was then he got "gung ho" about getting into the armed forces. Sgobbo went to Grand Central Station and tried to join the Army, but he was underage. A few months later, President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin D. Roosevelt] changed the age limit from 21 to 18, and Sgobbo was drafted. Loyalty to his country made him eager to go.

At Fort Dix, New Jersey, Dominick Sgobbo mustered and had instruction in military courtesy and avoiding social diseases while waiting for trains to move the troops out. At Fort Hood, Texas, he went through basic training, exercising and learning first aid. After 13 weeks he learned he was going to be a company clerk, and he complained to his commanding officer that he didn't want a desk job for the rest of the war. Instead, Sgobbo went into munitions training, and excelled with a rifle. At Camp Phillips, Kansas, he was assigned to be an infantry replacement, a light machine gunner, in Company G [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division], and he kept that position for the rest of the war. He also joined the boxing team. Sgobbo went through the Tennessee Maneuvers, enjoyed a short furlough, then went to Camp McCain, Mississippi for extensive training in preparation for the invasion of Normandy. The recruits were drilling seven days a week, and taking long hikes with full packs in the Mississippi summer heat. Sgobbo said they were trained to be tough. He didn't find it unbearable; he was strong, young, and unencumbered. He notes that as a first generation Italian-American, he underwent interrogation as to whether he would have any qualms about fighting Italian soldiers. He didn't mention that he had two cousins fighting in the Italian army, and swore that he was an American, willing to do his job. From Camp Shanks, New York, Sgobbo got orders to ship out to England, where he spent less than a month training, exercising, learning rules and regulations and getting ready for D-Day.

Kept waiting, Dominick Sgobbo was disappointed that he didn't get to Normandy until August 1944. The whole 2nd Battalion [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division] went across the English Channel on a ferry boat and Sgobbo was violently seasick. He went down the landing nets with his machine gun tucked into his jacket and secured with his scarf, and another soldier carried his tripod as they boarded the Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP]. Sgobbo waded in waist-high water through German machine gun fire to shore. Sgobbo said there were a lot of bodies in the water and on the beach, and he was anxious to get on land to kill a few Germans before he got hit. The company [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division] regrouped and marched behind a tank to an apple orchard where they spent the night in foxholes with German shells falling all around. The next day they marched through hedgerows, and Sgobbo was nearly hit by fire from an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] which made his mouth go dry, and he wanted to go home. But his Army training kicked in and he followed his company officers' directions, overcoming his momentary panic. It was a lesson he used later when he had to tell his men how to save their own lives.

Although Dominick Sgobbo was not the soldier with the longest tenure, he became a squad leader because he was the best man for the job. His gun skills were outstanding, he knew how to read and write, he had leadership potential, and he knew what it took to do the job. His commanding officer, John Cowan [Annotator’s Note: unsure of spelling], was his mentor, and remained his friend until he died. Sgobbo commented that soldiers of Italian decent were often referred to as "dagos" or "wops" and he didn't like it. He said that discrimination was common in the beginning, but the war was a leveling experience, and in time they felt they were all equals.

Dominick Sgobbo walked 200 miles with Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton] forces to relieve the 101st Airborne Division in the Ardennes on Christmas Day. He said the Battle of the Bulge was rough, foxhole to foxhole, on frozen feet. Even though there was a buddy system to ensure that every night every man changed into dry socks, trench foot was common and painful. During the march, there was no water or food. The soldiers ate snow with lemon powder on it. They moved through frozen terrain in a snow storm, but they made the march in three days. To relieve the boredom at the front, Sgobbo said he would read, usually the "Readers' Digest." In town, he was "wild." He was not a drunk, but he did like to have a couple of drinks and would go to the places where the girls were. Sgobbo's division [Annotator's Note: Sgobbo was a squad leader in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division] took Trier, despite Eisenhower's [Annotator's Note: Supreme Allied Commander, US Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower] advice to Patton to bypass the city and move on to the Rhine. After crossing the Siegfried Line, the weather improved and the division moved into Luxemburg.

While the division [Annotator's Note: 94th Infantry Division] was in Luxemburg, Dominick Sgobbo was charged with taking a nearby settlement. Walking into the village, he was firing his machine gun from the hip when six Germans surrendered. They were shocked when Sgobbo sent them down the road to the MP [Annotator's Note: military police] to turn themselves in. After securing the civilians in the church to keep them out of the way, Sgobbo took possession of a house and began tidying up in preparation for the company's [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division] anticipated leave in Metz. Without warning, the settlement came under heavy artillery fire and was soon overrun with German soldiers. Sgobbo shot a German who was coming through a window at point blank range, and ran upstairs. He dodged bullets the Germans were firing through the ceiling and cleared them out with a grenade. During a sporadic firefight, the entire unit concentrated themselves in the house Sgobbo occupied. Things got quiet overnight but in the morning, a German Tiger tank [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI main battle tank, known as the Tiger] came into town, impervious to fire from Sgobbo's bazooka man, who was killed during his attempt to subdue it. [Annotator's Note: Sgobbo takes an emotional pause.] The tank positioned itself outside the house, stuck its 88 [Annotator's Note: 88mm gun] into the window, and the Germans demanded surrender. Sgobbo dismantled one machine gun, and threw his .45 [Annotator's Note: M1911 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol] away after emptying it into the radio. The house was on fire, and Sgobbo told his men he was going out, that it was every man for himself, and that they should take off. Sgobbo put his hands on his head, and, with many of his men, was led to a barn where they were searched for valuables. An SS Panzer [Annotator's Note: panzer is the German term for tank or armor] officer arrived and Sgobbo thought he was going to die that day.

Dominick Sgobbo and his two fellow sergeants answered when the SS officer asked for the guys in charge. They were taken to where the American dead were laid out, and the officer asked where the rest of the unit had gone. He was surprised to learn that so few had held off the whole German tank battalion all night long. The civilian whose house the Americans had occupied came and put in a good word for them, and as the officer was going back to his tank, Sgobbo asked what was going to happen to his wounded men. The officer said he would send them to a hospital, and Sgobbo thought he earned the officer's respect with that act. The officer said the war was over for Sgobbo and his men; they were going to a prison camp. The Americans walked down the road to a schoolhouse where they were interrogated and relieved of their personal possessions. Sgobbo had to forfeit his two candy bars and his Camel cigarettes. Other American soldiers joined the captured. Sgobbo worried about what his mother would think when she got the telegram saying he was missing in action. Some weeks later, the Red Cross notified his family that he was a prisoner of war by telegram, which his mother could not read. The delivery boy was not permitted to read it to her, but after reading it to himself, he told her it was "good news."

Dominick Sgobbo remembered taking prisoners back to headquarters and having to prevent non-combatants from mistreating them. He was dismayed to see brutality amongst his own people. He noted that in Buchenwald, the Germans were very prejudiced against the Russians and the Jewish prisoners. When they heard shots fired in the camp, they would say "a Russian a day keeps the Germans away." Most of the prisoners, who were from many different countries, wore the striped pajamas. French prisoners were used as trustees. Every manner of prejudice made itself apparent in the camp, but the Americans always stuck together. The first camp Sgobbo and his men were taken to was Stalag V-A near Luxembourg, but they were moved out quickly and marched away from the front lines and deeper into Germany. There were Italians prisoners among them who had refused to fight alongside the Germans among the prisoners, but Sgobbo noticed that all but the British and the American prisoners were being left behind for the Allies to rescue, a tactic to add to the Allies' problems. Finally, the march reached a poorly fortified World War 1 cavalry post, where the German guards were rather lax. The prisoners slept on a straw-covered, lice-ridden concrete floor. Before long, the sergeant in charge announced that the officers had all left rather than follow orders to kill all the prisoners. The sergeant wanted a promise from the prisoners that they would not go into town and rape and pillage the population. The prisoners agreed to those terms. Two volunteers agreed cross enemy lines to bring word to the Americans of the prisoners' whereabouts and insure the safety of the location. Allied tanks arrived with food and the Americans were thrilled to find oranges stamped "Sun Kist".

The Red Cross came in to the prison camp and Dominick Sgobbo was treated for dysentery. His buddies had been taking care of him, feeding him fragments of bread every day. He remembered another occasion during the march as they approached the Danube River when his right foot was bleeding through his boot, and his fellow sergeants got on either side of him to help him hop eight to ten miles to the next camp where he could be treated. The Red Cross gave the survivors post cards with pre-printed messages for them to send to their families. Sgobbo said his mother went to church when she got his communication. He commended the Red Cross for their many mercies after he was liberated. Sgobbo said he and his buddies wandered around the vicinity of the camp and took advantage of the local, though somewhat reluctant, hospitality until they were airlifted to France. He still thinks back with horror on the atrocities of the Holocaust, and suffers at the thought of the boys who were lost. He always wears a baseball cap that reads "Veteran" on which he displays his medals. He always points out that his boys, some of whom never made it home, earned those medals. When he speaks to audiences, he always points out how lucky he was to make it home. Sgobbo said he wouldn't change any part of his life, not even his prisoner of war experience, because he has learned so much about survival and friendship.