Jerome Fatora was born in July 1925 in Blairsville, Pennsylvania. He grew up there and when the draft age was lowered from 21 to 18 years old, he was called up soon after he became eligible. He was inducted at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania and waited there for ten days, going through testing which proved his aptitude for the Army Specialized Training Program or ASPT. First, he went to Fort Benning, Georgia for 16 weeks of rough treatment in basic training, then he got orders to attend the University of Wisconsin to study electrical engineering. There was a delay in getting train transportation to the school, and in the meantime, the program was cancelled. D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] invasion casualties had left the Army with a shortage of troops, according to Fatora, and the gap was filled with the 150,000 ASTP guys. He was told he would be going to train in advanced infantry maneuvers, and because his father had fought in World War 1, Fatora said he "knew what the infantry was." From advanced training in Mississippi, he shipped out on the RMS Queen Elizabeth, and landed in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. After traversing England for a few days, Fatora landed in France on D plus 94 [Annotator's Note: 94 days after the invasion of Normandy; 8 Septemebr 1944], shortly after the liberation of Paris.

The Allied forces had been unsuccessful in their bombing of the submarine bases at Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, and Jerome Fatora's 94th Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: Fatora was a member of Company C, 1st Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division] set up a perimeter around that area of coastal France to contain the Germans stationed there. They saw little action because the French Forces of the Interior, or FFI, were there as well, and firing constantly. In time, the division was moved across France to Germany and got into heavy fighting at Campholz Woods. Initially, the soldiers' clothing was inadequate for the winter weather conditions, and many soldiers lost their feet to gangrene. Every night, Fatora would put his wet socks around his waist to dry while he slept, and use them again the following morning. At one point, Fatora's platoon was in reserve behind a unit that fell prey to "schu" mines [Annotator's Note: German Schutzenmine 42, or Schu-mine 42; an anti-personnel mine] while crossing a field, and at night he could hear the cries and moans of GIs [Annotator’s Note: slang term for an American soldier] who had lost their legs. It was almost impossible to get the wounded out, but Fatora helped bring one guy back to the "meat wagon" in such a state of shock that he was sure he would soon be dancing, but he died of hemorrhage. Mine sweepers came through and made the way passable for them to answer the call of General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] who was marching to the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Fatora stayed on the northwest perimeter of the fighting until his division moved south to the Saar River.

Returning to questions about his prewar life, Jerome Fatora said that the Great Depression was a difficult time, but his family had food from a home garden. As meager as their provisions were during the Depression, he mentioned how bad the rations were in the Army. He walked to school and church, which he said prepared him for the marching the infantry required. He felt he had nice parents and a nice home, and remembered listening to prizefights on the radio for entertainment. He distinctly remembered when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His family was visiting at an uncle's home, and his cousins broke the news. His uncle said, "Those slant-eyed bastards, we'll kill 'em in a month." Fatora thought the war would be over before he reached draft age. But even at the tender age of 16, he became part of the war effort. Until he was drafted, he worked in a local munitions factory carrying black powder to the women workers who were producing shells. Fatora mentioned that most of the guys from his high school, as well as his older brother, entered the service about the same time that he did.

Jerome Fatora was on the front lines in the area of the Saar River for about six months during which time he "never got a scratch." On the first day they got a hot meal, they were ordered to drop everything for an advance across the river. Fatora was horrified, because he couldn't swim. There was a thick fog, and the steep bank made it difficult to get the boats unloaded into the cold, swift, dirty river. He doesn't remember how it happened, but the boat sank, and he wound up near the shore without his helmet, ammunition belt or rifle. He waded to the bank, and pulled himself up on shore. He met an intelligence reconnaissance group that had captured a few Germans, and they gave him one of the prisoner's coats. After he was briefly mistaken for an enemy soldier, he was refitted and successfully crossed the river to join his company [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division]. As a low ranking soldier, he never knew the reasoning behind his company's movements, but he soon found himself in Dusseldorf, Germany, under orders to cross the Rhine River. After the 82nd Airborne Division was "wiped out" in their attempt to cross, Fatora and a small party crossed into a town called Krefeld, Germany. All went well at first, but the enemy found out their whereabouts and surrounded the house they had commandeered. While trying to get inside, one of Fatora's buddies was machine-gunned [Annotator's Note: Fatora sobs] trough the chest and died. The war was nearing its end and the platoon agreed surrender was their best option.

Jerome Fatora's captors, kids of 14 and 15 years old, put his platoon [Annotator's Note: Fatora was a member of Company C, 1st Battalion, 302nd Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division] in a barn with French prisoners taken at Dunkirk. The Americans were interrogated, and endured verbal abuse from the German locals as they were led trough the streets; the children threw things at them, and were shouting "Roosevelt…caput" [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States]. Having had no news at the front, Fatora didn't understand at the time that they were celebrating the death of the American president. Fatora thinks the Germans believed Roosevelt's death would mean the end of the American involvement in the war. Fatora said his group was exhausted and hungry and didn't care about the womenfolk that the French had with them. The food they gave them was horrible, but Fatora ate it. Two days later, the 13th Armored Division came through, liberated the prisoners, and took their captors as prisoners. He felt the Germans were great soldiers, they were well trained and fought bravely right up until the end. After a few days, Fatora was shipped back to his unit. In this clip, Fatora also relates the tale of when he got a Luger [Annotator's Note: German P08 Luger 9mm semi-automatic pistol] as a souvenir. He had been dozing and opened his eyes to find a German officer handing him a pistol; coming to his senses, Fatora shouted in German, "Don't shoot!" and called the MPs [Annotator's Note: military police]. After kicking him around, they took the German, but Fatora kept the gun. Fatora had studied French in high school and after the war ended, he was called upon to work with a British officer and a French officer in checking the papers of displaced persons who were trying to get back to their home countries. He was given an apartment and a jeep escort to work every day in the city hall of Dusseldorf [Annotator's Note: Dusseldorf, Germany]. Fatora also tells about how his infantry training saved his life, and the challenges of being a young sergeant supervising older soldiers.

After the war in Europe ended, Jerome Fatora was sent to Czechoslovakia to train for the fighting in Japan. While he was there, some of the soldiers visited the concentration camps, but Fatora refused. He said the "wild" Russian Army came through, dressed in every manner of uniforms, and drinking vodka; they left as suddenly as they came. When the war ended in Japan, he sailed back to the United States in what he called a "tub" that broke down in the middle of the Atlantic. Once repaired, the ship continued to Camp Shanks, New York and Fatora was discharged in January 1946. He signed up for the reserves and "joined the 52-20 club" [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks], and used the G.I. Bill to attend Holy Cross College in Massachusetts [Annotator's Note: College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts]. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics, and continued on to Notre Dame Law School in Indiana [Annotator's Note: University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana], then achieved a PhD in Ohio. He went on to teach school in Cincinnati [Annotator's Note: Cincinnati, Ohio], and eventually took a job in government that he performed for 31 years.

Getting captured was Jerome Fatora's most memorable experience of the war. He feels he was part of the greatest undertaking of mankind and his life was built around his adventures. He fought because he felt is was a job that needed to be done. He proudly wears a cap that reveals he is a veteran. He remembers the great feeling he had when liberating small towns, even German ones. Asked how the war changed his life, Fatora said it made him "very peace loving," and the constant reminder of his mortality strengthened his Catholic faith. He became more tolerant, and although it was a "great experience," he would never want to do it again. He still lives with the disciplines and maturity he learned during his military service, and feels that is missing in the youth of today. He doesn't think Americans today have an understanding of how bad World War 2 was and, although it is not his favorite method of experiencing history, feels that institutions like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] are valuable methods of teaching the lessons of the war.