Joseph P. Vetrini

Joseph P. Vetrini was born in November 1921, in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Saint Benedict’s Preparatory school. At the time Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was working as a clerk for a trucking company and dating the woman who would become his wife.

In September 1942, Vetrini was drafted and sent to Fort Dix, where a physical exam revealed that he had a hernia. He underwent surgery to fix the problem, spent ten days in the hospital and was sent home for fourteen days leave.

When Vetrini returned to Fort Dix, he was sent to Camp Cook, California in the Mojave Desert, and assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 69^th Tank Regiment of the 6th Armored Division, where he underwent training and became a light tank assistant driver. Shortly afterward, he was reassigned as a clerk to the Regimental training section (S-3). Vetrini recalled that his captain was a West Point graduate named Walker, and that the actor Alan Ladd was in his division.

In January 1943, Vetrini was transferred to the 9^th Armored Infantry as a machine gunner on a half-track vehicle’s turret. The division shipped out for England in February 1944, and because someone had measles aboard his ship, they were quarantined on arrival for ten days. After landing, his unit was garrisoned at Andoversford from January 1944 until July when shipped to France. While in England, Vetrini was assigned to help the company clerk with paperwork.

Vetrini’s division landed in Normandy on July 21, 1944 and was assigned to General Patton’s Third Army. A few days later, the Third Army began its advance through France. Vetrini recalled his first experience of war as seeing burning vehicles and dead German soldiers alongside the road. An enemy 88-millimeter anti-tank gun hit a tank and a half-track in Vetrini’s unit, and infantrymen dismounted and captured the gun and its crew.

Vetrini’s unit halted on a break and spotted a sniper in a tree. The company commander’s jeep driver, a corporal, fired at him with his Thompson submachine gun. The sniper dropped his rifle and tried to surrender. The corporal emptied his magazine into him, killing him. He appeared to be a fifteen-year-old boy. 

On another occasion, General Patton appeared at the front, passing by Vetrini. The general was standing up in his jeep with his tank behind him. Patton was “furious” because the commander had ordered a halt to assess a German position. Patton ordered a charge and the entire battalion rushed forward, guns blazing. No one in Vetrini’s squad was injured, and the German defense collapsed.

The division pushed on, sleeping in moving vehicles on the road. In mid-August of 1944, Vetrini was hit by shrapnel. He went through a series of hospitals, and ended up back in the United States in a military hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Vetrini was given medical leave in February 1945, then married his fiancé. He was discharged in March 1945, with disability payments. Vetrini received a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart, among other awards.

After he was discharged, Vetrini joined the Newark Fire Department. He rose to the rank of captain during a thirty-year career before retiring in 1975.

A life member of the VFW, Joseph P. Vetrini passed away on December 3, 2006.