Frank Forcinella was born in February 1925 in Rensselaer, New York. His childhood was good. They had hard times and only had meat once a week. His father worked for the railroad after serving in World War 1. He was only working three days a week. His mother lost two of her children, but three survived. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Forcinella if he recalls where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was upstairs where the big radio was, listening to the Jack Benny [Annotator's Note: born Benjamin Kubelksy; American entertainer] show. It was interrupted for the news. Forcinella was drafted in 1943, two weeks before he was to graduate. His childhood life was really good. Getting drafted was the hard part. He asked to delay it so he could graduate. They would not give him an extension. His brother volunteered for the Navy. He knew he needed a high school education to get a good job. He was sent to Camp Campbell, Kentucky [Annotator's Note: now Fort Campbell in Oak Grove, Kentucky and Clarksville, Tennessee]. He had to learn about tanks and the jobs that pertained to them. He was not able to stay with his good friends after about three weeks. He had worked on a farm and learned to drive when he was 12 years old.

At Camp Campbell [Annotator's Note: now Fort Campbell in Oak Grove, Kentucky and Clarksville, Tennessee], Frank Forcinella did his basic training before being put into a company. He was there about a year. At first, he was with the 20th Armored [Annotator's Note: 20th Armored Regiment, 20th Armored Division]. He learned to drive a tank and had a lot of fun. He was there in May [Annotator's Note: May 1943] and the 20th was broken up. They did not know about D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] yet, so they did not know why this happened. He went overseas on an English ship and everybody got seasick. They had spaghetti but the sauce was like water. He would just have soon jumped off the plank as be seasick. They all helped each other out though and became like brothers. They landed in Southampton, England. He was interested in Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England]. The English were being bombed everyday by the Germans. They started training. He joined the 5th Division [Annotator's Note: 5th Infantry Division] just before Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saint-Lô, 7 to 19 July 1944, France]. They lost a lot in the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. [Annotator's Note: Forcinella is hard to follow at times.] He was in the 2nd Regiment, Company E [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division]. They won a Presidential Citation [Annotator's Note: Presidential Unit Citation, awarded to units for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy on or after 7 December 1941] later on for France. He was scared heading into combat. The first thing he heard was the artillery as they headed to the woods. One guy who was 18 could not wait to get a cigarette. A sniper shot him in the head. That was Forcinella's first taste of combat. The worst part was carrying him out. It was a lot of dead weight. Forcinella was trading his cigarettes for chocolate. His father had smoked heavy Italian tobacco and was not allowed to smoke in their house. His father died from cancer.

Before he got to Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saint-Lô, 7 to 19 July 1944; Saint-Lô, France], Frank Forcinella joined the 5th [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division]. They had lost a lot of people fighting in the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. Nobody quite knew enough yet. It is easy to get killed quickly on the line in combat. He saw a lot of that. They joined the 5th getting ready with Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. The walking is torture, and you have to be strong. They went into Saint-Lo. It was being bombed out. After the war, he saw they only had one little building left. Patton had to get the tanks in there. They started towards a few cities and then Metz [Annotator's Note: Battle of Metz; Metz, France; 27 September to 13 December 1944], which was fortified. They did not have combat for a while after the Saint-Lo breakthrough. Patton had groups of tanks in there. They were heading towards the Seine and crossed with no problems as it was already taken by the 3rd Army. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer rattles off a list of city names that Forcinella recognizes.] Forcinella remembers little battles here and there but was sometimes held in reserve. He cannot remember all of it other than the big cities. They had to stay at Metz because they could not take it. There were forts around the city. It was not conquered by any troops. the 11th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] lost a lot of people there. Forcinella was down at the base of the hill. The planes bombed but were not too successful. They had to stay and try to starve the Germans out. They held there for some time. Before the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], they headed towards Frankfurt, Germany with Patton.

Frank Forcinella crossed into Germany [Annotator's Note: in early February 1945] and came upon the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. That was tortuous. The Maginot Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by France in the 1930s] in France was different and was from the old days. The Siegfried Line was modern. They had concrete pillars to stop the tanks. Forcinella's job was to protect the tanks. After that, the Germans were leaving. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer reads from a history of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division's movements.] The small towns had no people unless the line was moving fast. The big cities were well protected, and they had to move from house-to-house. Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] was their last stop before the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. In the house-to-house fighting, they would blow a hole and crawl through. They did not like it. When the Bulge happened, they got a break from that. Once the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] had been cleared, the battles were different. [Annotator's Note: Forcinella goes back and forth in time sequence for his combat stories quite often.] There was nobody there in Frankfurt.

Frank Forcinella only heard about what the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] was until they were in the trucks on the way. They had to go as far as they could overnight. It was snowing and they had no idea or explanation about what they were getting into. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] had to know because that is where the orders come from. You get what you have to know. They were glad to get out of Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany]. On the line in the Bulge, they were told they were going to attack the Germans from one side to close them in. He met some soldiers who filled them in about how the Germans broke in. The soldiers had no real combat unlike Forcinella and his men. Just before Frankfurt, he and two guys were going to cross the line together. They had trained together. They were going across a field. A German machine gun could cut you right through the body. He lost both of his friends that way. [Annotator's Note: Forcinella talks about the men's plans for after the war and about telling the one man's wife how he died.] When Forcinella got hit the first time in the Bulge, his mother got a letter, but she did not get the story.

Frank Forcinella got hit crossing a river in Luxembourg [Annotator's Note: 7 February 1945 near Echternach, Luxembourg]. They had to cross the Sauer [Annotator's Note: Sauer River] two times. The first aid men [Annotator's Note: medics] called it the Blood River. The Germans were up on a hill. The trees were falling down. A first aid man got to him and bandaged him. Forcinella did not know he got hit because it was so cold. He only felt that he got hot in one spot. He could not believe it and he thought he was gone when he saw the blood. Forcinella was asked to help a guy who had lost a leg. It took 19 hours to cross the river. The crossings that Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] did [Annotator's Note: Forcinella does not finish the thought]. Some people hated Patton and Patton got in trouble in Italy for slapping a guy in the face [Annotator's Note: two occurrences, 3 August 1943 and 10 August 1943]. He was a good military planner and they respected him for that. Forcinella was on Luxembourg television and they paid for a trip for his whole family. [Annotator's Note: Forcinella tells a story that is hard to follow about the SS or Schutzstaffel, German paramilitary organization, killing people.] The Germans were putting on American uniforms. Prisoners were giving up all the time. They saw an American shooting what they thought was an American, but he was SS as he had the SS tattoo [Annotator's Note: some members of the Waffen SS or Armed SS, had their blood group letter tattooed under their upper left arm]. They were bad people, and they were used in the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Forcinella was hit in the upper chest and taken off the line to first aid which are very far back. Penicillin had just been discovered and it really helped him out. He spent time in France but had to go back. He did not want to go back to the front line. He did that three times. The second time was in the leg two weeks after being hit the first time. The third time was in March [Annotator's Note: March 1945]. The second time he was hit another guy was going back with him. It was hard to get information to find out where to go. Nobody could be trusted. The third time he was hit in the leg he said he was not going back. After the second wound, he was in a farmhouse with hay and the farmers. A guy with a pitchfork came in but did not find them. He went into a cellar one time that had ham. It took them two weeks to get back to their outfit. He still has broken toes from the third injury.

Frank Forcinella was going to go to Japan, and he made a mistake not doing it [Annotator's Note: the story is unclear]. His son helped him get his third Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy]. He came back to the United States and was on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] as the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] had not been dropped yet. He was told they would take care of his foot before then. When the bomb dropped, he was relieved. He was discharged and decided to not take care of his foot. [Annotator's Note: There is an odd break in the tape at 0:54:02:000 and it starts back with Forcinella talking about the third time he was wounded in combat.] He did not go back to his unit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division]. They were in Luxembourg and they took a few towns. The people were so happy. He takes trips back there with his wife. Today, Americans are not the same as they were in the old days. Luxembourg and Belgium have really got it and they are like us. France is not that way. For the 60th Anniversary [Annotator's Note: Forcinella does not make clear which anniversary], Belgium invited them over and asked the United States if the veterans could come over on military planes. The Iraq War [Annotator's Note: Iraq War, 2003 to 2011] messed with that. Tom Hanks [Annotator's Note: Thomas Jeffrey Hanks; American actor, filmmaker] really works for the guys [Annotator's Note: for American military veterans] and is a beautiful guy. Forcinella got to meet Gary Sinise [Annotator's Note: Gary Alan Sinise; American actor, director, musician, producer, philanthropist]. Tom Hanks talked to both President Bush [Annotator's Note: George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States] and Cheney [Annotator's Note: Richard Bruce Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States] about taking the veterans over. Belgium heard about it and could not believe they would not do it. Belgium decided to do it, but the Defense Minister said the families could not go. Forcinella did not go because of that but he is glad Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] is buried there. Patton did a good thing during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] was circled for a long time. The planes had trouble dropping food due to the weather. Patton was in a meeting with Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] and Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] and said he would get them free in 24 hours. He got them there in less time and saved them. Patton does not get credit. Forcinella and his son study the history. The 5th Division [Annotator's Note: 5th Infantry Division] fought a lot and suffered a lot.

Frank Forcinella was wounded on 18 January [Annotator's Note: 18 January 1945]. He was back with his unit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] when they crossed the Rhine River [Annotator's Note: at Nierstein, Germany, 22 March 1945]. The Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] turned out all right. Forcinella's Company E got a Presidential Citation [Annotator's Note: Presidential Unit Citation, awarded to units for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy on or after 7 December 1941] for a mission where they had to hold a bridge for the tanks during the Bulge. They had a good lieutenant. They were in their foxholes. Company E was in a barn. They had tanks and half-tracks [Annotator's Note: M3 half-track; a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] with them. [Annotator's Note: Forcinella keeps stopping his story to talk about his return trips to these scenes of combat.] There were big holes in the roof. Mortar fire was coming in on them. It was about three o'clock in the morning. The Germans came down the road with hobnail boots and were singing. The sergeant asked if they should shoot. They did not have any officers. They let them go and it was a good idea. They knew there were tanks down the road. The men with the tanks let the Germans come all the way to the bridge and killed them all. Forcinella had never seen such death the next morning when he went by there. The sergeant was more of an officer than anything else. A lot of the officers did not like that. They had one from West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York] that lasted about an hour. He was a little guy and kept telling them to follow him. They tried to tell him not to forget about the tanks behind them, but he told them to do as he said. He told them to do double time. The tanks opened up and he was killed by friendly fire. He learned that little guys want to be bigger.

Frank Forcinella liked the Rhine River crossing [Annotator's Note: at Nierstein, Germany, 22 March 1945]. They had high hills they watched from. His Division [Annotator's Note: Forcinella was a member of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] had the job of keeping the area clear for the boats. German planes were coming in as it started getting dark. It reminded him of Fourth of July [Annotator's Note: American Independence Day] fireworks. They stayed the next day making sure the tanks got across. From then on, the fighting was not as tough as they thought it was going to be. They went by Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] and it was bombed out. They rolled along through Germany. He was not sure yet that the war was going to be over. When the tanks had run out of gas earlier, that held the 3rd Army up. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] wanted gas and when he wanted something he wanted it. Forcinella was on television in Luxembourg [Annotator's Note: after the war] with the German that had wounded him. He had been taught not to be hateful. He met the German and learned the man had been in Siberia [Annotator's Note: Siberia, Russia] for 15 years. Forcinella had never talked about the war before, and it should come out. It should be taught in school and it is not. A teacher told him they only teach it for three hours in school. Ken Burns [Annotator's Note: Kenneth Lauren Burns; American filmmaker known for his style of documentary films] brought that out after questioning children who did not know. Forcinella only remembers learning about the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865] in school. It is good there is a museum like this [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Most of the World War 2 guys are almost gone. His unit went right up to Czechoslovakia [Annotator's Note: 1 May 1945]. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was a madman who had to kill himself. Forcinella ended up in the mountains. They knew the war might be over. Below them was Pilsen [Annotator's Note: Pilsen, Czechoslovakia; now Plzeň, Czech Republic] and the trains were running. They were not told the war was over. The Germans took the people for all they were worth. It was a shame to kill some of the kids who were German soldiers. They took a lot of prisoners in groups. A lot of the Germans were trying to escape to get away from the Russians. The man who shot Forcinella was in Siberia after the war, and he became a doctor.

The Germans were trying hard to get back to the American side to get away from the Russians and Frank Forcinella felt bad trying to send them back to the Russians. When Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] got killed [Annotator's Note: in a vehicle accident that occured on 8 December 1945; Patton died of his injuries on 21 December 1945], he wanted to continue the war to Russia. Forcinella thinks he may have been killed for that. Returning to Europe after the war with his family was quite different. When he left Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] not much was standing. It amazed him that it became what it did. The people were good. Forcinella did not want to be killing people. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was a madman, and the people became like him. He tells his son about the propaganda. A little kid had a Hitler Youth [Annotator's Note: youth organization of the Nazi Party for young men] t-shirt that Forcinella wanted to trade a watch for. Forcinella asked him what they learned and questioned him about more. If you hear enough propaganda, you believe it. They had no televisions then. Forcinella blanked a lot out and it came back when it was needed for history. It is important. Luxembourg has done a good job with their museums too. Belgium used their planes to take United States veterans over to Europe.