Salvatore Famularo was born in Amsterdam, New York in September 1925. He had a sister and a brother. He was the oldest. His sister was the closest one in age. His brother is retired from the local paper. His father became a citizen of the United States after joining the Army during World War 1. His father immigrated to the United States in 1910 or 1912. He had to go to school to learn English so he could get a job. His father originally was a fruit and vegetable man. When the depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] came the people he worked for hit rock bottom. His father could not get a job so he worked under the WPA [Annotator's Note: the Works Progress Administration]. His father went to work for the American locomotive where they were building tanks when the war broke out. Then he went back to the fruit and vegetable industry. Then he retired. His mother was a housewife. After his brother became of age, his mother went to work where they used to make sporting goods in Amsterdam. He did not realize he was poor because everybody was poor. There were a few people that were well off but the majority of people were poor. He could go to the market with a dollar and get a big bag of groceries. Eggs were a penny. He remembers the first refrigerator they had. It was brought to the house. It had coils on the top. Every day his mother had to put a quarter into a slot. Once a week or so a man would come around and unload the money. The money went to the payment for the refrigerator. If they failed to put the quarter in they would not get coolant. He remembers Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened on a Sunday. He was still in high school. He had never heard of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. Then they explained to him that it was a naval base in the Hawaiian islands. It was not a state yet, but the United States owned it. The attack on the island was the beginning of the war for the United States. He was 17 years old his senior year. In the yearbook, under his picture, he put ‘going into the Marines’, and then it said ‘probably sewing buttons on Marine uniforms.’ He sewed buttons. When he turned 18 years old he had to register for the draft. He went through selective service. He picked the branch he wanted to go into.

Salvatore Famularo does not know why he picked the Marine Corps. He thought he was an athletic kid. He had street sense. He knew his way around. From there he was inducted into the Marine Corps. He was sworn in in Albany [Annotator's Note: Albany, New York]. Once he was sworn in he was put on a train and hauled away to Parris Island, South Carolina [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in Port Royal, South Carolina] for boot camp. It was the Marine Corps way of taking them out of civilian life. It really worked. He adapted to it easily. He had never been away from home before. During the depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], he went away to a summer camp for the underprivileged. That was the only other time he was away from home. When he was at Parris Island he enjoyed going to the rifle range. He was firing for the record. He did well and was a sharpshooter. He loved it. To him, everything was still a joke. When he graduated from Parris Island, they went to New River, North Carolina to Camp Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina]. No one liked Camp Lejuene. They went there in the wintertime. They spent three months in Parris Island. Camp Lejuene was right on the ocean. It was cold. From there they went to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] in sunny California. He thought it was like heaven out there. They went through all the different battle tactics and the things that would benefit them in combat. He was a rifleman. He got a weekend pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and went to Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. He went to a place to have his picture taken. He was not issued dress blues. They did not get dress blues back then. The Hollywood [Annotator's Note: Hollywood, California] Marines got the dress blues. He got the dress greens. When he went to have his picture taken they had some dress blues there. He had the picture taken and sent it home to his mother. That was the only picture he ever had. From Camp Pendleton, he went to Hollywood to the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.] center. The place was packed. He and about four other guys went. They went up to the counter and there was a short little girl with the most beautiful eyes. It was Bette Davis [Annotator's Note: Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis; American actor and co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, a club venue for food, dancing, and entertainment for servicemen during World War 2] and he fell in love with her. He was 18 years old and she was about 28 years old then. He asked her to dance. She called him honey. No one could talk to him after that. She had coffee, donuts, and sandwiches to pass out. She could not dance with him. That was the best thing to happen to him.

Salvatore Famularo went to Maui in the Hawaiian islands. He went into the 4th Marine Division [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] as a replacement. They trained every day. They were doing amphibious beach landings. Other guys were getting sick. He was fortunate enough not to get sick. They got orders they would be moving out. They were on their way to the Mariana Islands. They landed on Saipan on 15 June 1944. It was hot. They landed in front of a sugar refinery just outside the capital city. They [Annotator's Note: the Japanese defenders] threw everything but stones at them. They knew exactly where they were going to land. Famularo got to the beach and was laying down on a little hill. There was a big smokestack in the distance that had holes all over it from gunfire. Guys were getting killed left and right. The whole stack was Japanese snipers. Someone figured out what was happening and they got on the wire back to the ship. The ship leveled the sugar refinery and the smokestack. The Japanese were a formidable enemy. The more they got trapped the harder they fought. For them, it was an honor to die for the emperor. For the Americans, it was an honor to live for their country. It was open country and many parts of Saipan were a jungle. There were a lot of hills. They would come to the hills and mortars were coming at them. They used to wipe out guys left and right. Someone figured out they had spotters on top of the hills and the mortars were on the other side of the hills. The 4th Marine Division had the left flank and the 2nd Marine Division had the right flank. The 27th Army Division [Annotator's Note: 27th Infantry Division] had the middle. His was medium hills. In the center the terrain was hard. The Marine Corps' way of fighting is using the element of surprise. The Army could not keep up with them because they had the worst part of the territory. The Marines were way up front and the Army was behind. The Japanese soldiers were coming into a pit. That was when they charged the 27th Division. They were annihilated. Famularo's outfit caught part of it on the line. They stopped them. They kept pushing up north. The combat started getting less and less. There were a bunch of Japanese soldiers who surrendered, about 20 or 30 of them. Famularo's outfit was sitting on the side of a road. The island was almost declared secured. The Japanese soldiers were wearing loincloths because they did not trust them. The MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] were taking them to a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] center. He remembers one Marine who was an MP who was smoking a cigarette with his rifle down. One Japanese soldier was looking at the Marine and asking for a cigarette. The Marine stopped, reached in his pocket, and gave the Jap [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] a cigarette, and lit it for him. The Japanese soldier bowed to him and the Marine patted his soldier. Two hours before they were trying to kill each other. He does not understand this. When the island was secure they had to go to Tinian.

Salvatore Famularo [Annotator's Note: and his fellow Marines in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] was put aboard LCVPs or Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands] was only about five miles away. They took them over there and could not take them all the way. They dropped the bridge and they walked through the water that was chest high. He had his rifle above his head. He was scared. He thought if they opened up then they would be dead. He does not remember too much about Tinian. They were there for the airfield. That was the airfield that the Enola Gay [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber, tail number 44-86292; the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare] took off from. Colonel Tibbets [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Brigadier General Paul Warfield Tibbets, Junior] dropped the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. The campaign lasted for ten or 12 days. Then they went back to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands]. He went to the 4th Marine Division cemetery and said his goodbyes. Then they went back to Maui [Annotator's Note: Maui, Hawaii] where they did amphibious landing training every day. They set out for another campaign further north. Nobody had heard of Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan]. They thought it should not last long because the island was so small. The three divisions [Annotator's Note: 3rd Marine Division, 4th Marine Division, and 5th Marine Division] spent 36 days on Iwo Jima. On 19 February 1945, they landed on Iwo Jima. The Japanese general, Kuribayashi [Annotator's Note: Japanese Army General Tadamichi Kuribayashi; commander of the Japanese garrison during the Battle of Iwo Jima], was not an infantry general; he was an engineer. He fortified the island very well. He had the island guarded so heavily nothing could get through. He did something no other Japanese general did, he sucked them in because he had the whole distance of the beach. The beach was volcano ash. When they walked in it they sunk up to their ankles. If they tried to dig a hole the sand would fill back up again. They got murdered. The 5th Marine Division had to go to the left to attack Mount Suribachi [Annotator's Note: a terrain feature on Iwo Jima, Japan] which was a high hill. It was all fortified. If they were on the hill they could see everything. Famularo's division had to go north and cut the island in half. The two airfields had to be taken. They got up to the first airfield. He was laying in a hole because they were being hit by mortars. The mortar was on railroad tracks. They could see it when it was fired. They could feel the ground shake. Things were so bad on Iwo Jima that he would defecate his pants. He kept this a secret until after the war. He wanted to go to confession because he is Catholic. He went to a church that was not in his hometown. He confessed that he would go look for the dead who were about his size and he would look through their pack to find clean skivvy shorts or dungaree pants. He would not take anything else. He confessed this to the priest. The priest told him he did nothing wrong. Famularo stunk badly. He finally got absolution with that. On the fourth day on Iwo Jima, he heard a commotion going on. All the ships in the bay were blowing their horns. He was in a hole with another Marine. He was laying on his back with his rifle over his shoulder. They secured Mount Suribachi and raised the flag on top of it. They were so far away everything looked miniature. They stayed where they were because of the snipers. Then they got the word to move out. They headed to the second airfield. They passed Turkey Knob [Annotator's Note: a terrain feature on Iwo Jima, Japan] and came to the Amphitheater [Annotator's Note: a terrain feature on Iwo Jima, Japan].

Salvatore Famularo was at the Amphitheater [Annotator’s Note: a terrain feature on Iwo Jima, Japan] which was a big flat piece of ground. It had little hills on the outskirts. As they were going across, he got hit by a machine gun in his leg. As he got hit he managed to keep hold of his rifle. There were three Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] in a hole and they saw he was still moving around. They got out of the hole to go finish him off. He kept firing at them wildly and slowed them down. They all heard the sound of an American tank coming. It was coming right for him. He kept yelling at them to stop. The guy told him to lay perfectly still they were going to go right over him. He thought he was going to die. They came over him. He was under the belly of the tank. The escape hatch opened and two guys reached down and pulled him inside. There is not a lot of room in a tank. They put a needle of morphine in his back and treated his wounds. They took him close to the beach. They did not have any more stretchers so they put him on half a tent and half dragged him to the beach. When they got there, he saw hundreds of dead and wounded laying on the beach. Some guys were calling for their mothers and to God. He saw big guys get religion. He saw the guys who lost religion questioning God. He had the morphine in him and he thinks that saved him from going crazy. He was in and out of consciousness. The LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] were coming in. There were black [Annotator's Note: African-American] Marines there too, working like stevedores [Annotator's Note: also called a longshoreman or a dockworker; a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships and trucks] unloading ammunition. Water was precious on Iwo Jima. They could not drink the water there because it was contaminated with sulfur. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] would try to catch water when it rained. These men would be unloading ammo and water, and then they would lay ten or 12 guys into the LCVPs. Then they would take them out to the hospital ship. They came up to him laying on the poncho. Two black Marines grabbed one side and the third the other side. He opened his eyes and one of them was smiling and told him he was going home. He started crying. He went aboard the hospital ship. He was supposed to go to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands], their home island. All the hospitals there were full and he was sent to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. He was in the 111th Hospital [Annotator's Note: Naval Fleet Hospital 111] on Guam. Doctors would come by and look at the record sheets and write stuff down. When they got to him they asked how he was. He told them he was in pain off and on. The doctor wrote something and told him good luck. He asked the pharmacist's mate what the doctor wrote on his chart. The doctor put down broken bones in the Pacific not healing correctly, osteomyelitis [Annotator's Note: inflammation of bone or bone marrow, usually due to infection] was setting in and he was going home.

Salvatore Famularo was sent home on a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft]. There were no seats on the plane, only racks with stretchers. They flew from Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] to Midway [Annotator's Note: Midway Atoll] to Hickam Field [Annotator's Note: now Hickam Air Force Base and part of Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam on Oahu, Hawaii] to the San Diego Naval Hospital [Annotator's Note: in San Diego, California]. Before they got to California the pilot put the intercom on and told them if they looked out the right window they would see sunny California. All the guys that could go over to lookout did. A guy in the back started singing "California here I come", and he started crying. Famularo stayed in the hospital. He used to go to the boot camp section of San Diego and watch the boots [Annotator's Note: nickname for new Marine recruits] go through their paces. From there they put him on a train to Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] where he was discharged. From there he went to New York. He went to Jack Dempsy's [Annotator's Note: Jack Dempsy's Restaurant in New York, New York] and he [Annotator's Note: Jack Dempsy; American professional boxer] was there in the front. When he shook his hand it was a terrible handshake. This man shakes hands with thousands of people a day. He would not screw around with him. He had the nickname the "Manassa Mauler." He did not want to find out. From there he caught the train to go upstate to Amsterdam [Annotator's Note: Amsterdam, New York]. He would never forget Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: the Battle of Iwo Jim, Japan]. Dante [Annotator's Note: Dante Alighieri; Italian[a] poet, writer and philosopher] would have said welcome to hell. Due to his wounds, he would not have been able to keep up with everyone else so he took the discharge. He broke his father's heart because he did not take advantage of the schooling. He had a friend who owned a bar. He went to work for him as a bartender. He worked in the best restaurants in Albany [Annotator's Note: Albany, New York]. He would look forward to going to work. He enjoyed his work. Every night it was something different. He met a lot of nice people. Senator Tedesco [Annotator's Note: James Nicholas Tedisco; American politician] inaugurated him into the New York Hall of Fame. There were 64 inductees and each senator sponsors someone. Senator Tedesco sponsored him and Tom Smith [Annotator's Note: Thomas J. Smith; Smith's oral history interview is also available on this Digital Collections website]. When their names were announced everyone got up and whooped and hollered for them. He asked if they deserved that. Tom Smith said they did. Smith went 36 days on Iwo Jima and did not get a scratch on him.

Salvatore Famularo remembers it was an all-out war when he went. His most memorable moment was getting out of Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, Japan] alive. Anyone that walked out of there alive was lucky. There were over 7,000 men killed and 27,000 casualties. Those are big numbers for such a small island. Everybody that was brought up in World War 2 was brought up during the depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] and had strong backs. He thinks the kids today could do well, but back in his day, they had a strong back. He thinks he is more tolerant than he was before the war. He could hear an argument and sit down and judge it. It does not always work like that. He started to scrutinize things. He would study things before he made a judgment. Freedom does not come cheap, somewhere along the line someone picked up the check. A lot of guys paid the check regardless of where it was, Europe or the Pacific. All the kids that got killed during the war, maybe one of them could have come up with the antidote to fight cancer, but it is too late. They could have benefitted mankind. He shares a poem, "I was raised on Parris Island [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in Port Royal, South Carolina], the land that God forgot, where the sand is 14 inches and the sun is scorching hot. I peeled many an onion and twice as many spuds, and in my leisure time I washed out all my duds. I served on Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima too. I prayed to God in heaven to help me see this through, and when I get to heaven St. Peter I will tell, another Marine reporting sir, I did my time in hell.” [Annotator's Note: Famularo breaks down a bit as he says the last line.]