Pearl Harbor survivor also fought at Normandy, spent time as POW
By Bill Hess
Herald/Review
SIERRA VISTA — The Japanese attack on Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, was the real start to an impressive military career for Fred Toczko.
After helping to defend Hickam Field, the major Army Air Forces base on Oahu, Private First Class Toczko put in for flight school because the service was allowing enlisted soldiers to become sergeant pilots. Some of those pilots would go on to be picked as commissioned officers.
When he was accepted, he went by ship to California.
Along the way, Army Air Forces Commander Gem. Hap Arnold saw a need for glider pilots, because of the early successes of the Germans, and wanted the United States to have a similar force which required a strong corps of instructors. Gliders were heavily used in the China, Burma, India theater against the Japanese and were critical during the D-day invasion on Normandy.
Toczko entered the glider pilot program to become an instructor pilot to train others in the flying of non-motorized aircraft, which he did as a staff sergeant.
But, as part of that program, he other glider instructor pilots agreed to become fighter and bomber pilots. Eventually Toczko went to Texas, California and to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, then outside of Tucson, becoming a B-24 pilot.
Later he was assigned to the 389th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) at an airfield in England where he flew as a co-pilot on Liberators.
Two years and six months after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — minus a day — Toczko would find himself in a bomber co-pilot’s seat supporting the landings at Normandy in France.
“We took off at 2 a.m.” he said, adding visibility wasn’t good and many aircrews worried about crashing into one another.
At 6:20 a.m., his plane and hundreds of others were dropping bombs on Nazi forces in France.
Three weeks later on another mission, this time over Germany, his plane was shot down.
Two of the crew members died and the top-positioned turret gunner/flight engineer had been wounded by fire from a German fighter, Toczko said.
He was put in his chute and was pushed out of the plane but his parachute did not open.
The ball turret gunner could not get out of his position, and went down with the plane, he said.
Toczko bailed out, but as he went down his aircraft was just above him and until there was enough separation for him to pull is parachute cord.
Coming under ground fire, he was hit twice and on the way down, both of his boots came off and he hit the ground in his bare feet, crushing one of them on impact.
It was the foot which had been injured during the attack on Hawaii.
He was taken to the Hermann Goering Hospital in Berlin for treatment, where German doctors wrapped his injured foot “in cotton wadding and poured ice cold alcohol on it,” so it could be straightened out.
During his stay in the hospital, he and other wounded GIs were subject to a round the clock bombing raids by the Americans and British.
One was so bad it sounded “like a freight train,” Toczko said, adding, “I had never been so frightened in my life.”
It was a couple of weeks before he was taken to a German POW camp, where his welcome by fellow prisoners was, at best, luke warm.
“They didn’t trust me,” he said because there was no one to vouch he was an American and because he had a Polish last name, the distrust was greater because of the Nazi’s use of informers within the camps, usually Germans who could speak excellent English.
He went through the usual sports questions, which caused him concerns because, “I didn’t know that much about sports,”
Eventually someone from Norwich spoke to him and asked him questions about the Connecticut town, which he passed and acceptance came.
Looking back at being shot down, Toczko said it happened on the same day, “I made first lieutenant.”
And unlike his small pay as a very junior enlisted man, by then he as making nearly $350 a month, which included $60 for quarters
allowance, $40 for food, slightly more than $78 for flight pay and the rest as his base pay.
He was one of many POWs who were forced marched from one place to another before being freed by Americans in April, 1945, slightly before the
Germans surrendered in early May of that year.
As for his first POW camp, Toczko said, “I could smell the furnaces of Dachau,” where Jews and others were being murdered by the Nazis.
The returning POWs were kept separated for transport to their home countries. Tired of waiting, Toczko went AWOL and headed to a French port and talked his way onto a nearly empty ship returning to the U.S.
His last bit of excitement happened during the Atlantic crossing when a freighter hit the ship he was on, nearly sinking it.
But he and others refused to transfer to another vessel because of the rough seas and the skill of the damaged ship’s crew saved the boat and it made it to the U.S.
Laughing, Toczko said after the end of the war, he received a $313 check from the German government.
“It was $1 for every day I was a POW,” he said.
Toczko left the Army but 90 days later re-enlisted as a master sergeant, becoming involved in the intelligence area — he speaks seven languages — and eventually retired in 1959 at Fort Huachuca, after 20 years of service, retiring as a master sergeant, “which was bumped up to captain,” he said.
He went on to serve in civil service positions including many tied to the intelligence world, achieving the civil service grade of GS-13.
MEDALS EARNED
During his 20-year military career, Fred Toczko was awarded an Air Medal and two Purple Heart Medals. He also received the POW Medal. He and his wife, Marcelle, have nine children between them, as well as 17 grandchildren and a dozen great-grandchildren.
Great story of a real hero, Sandy! Thanks for sharing it with us. (((hugs)))
Pearl Harbor survivors spend eternity with their shipmates
HONOLULU - Lee Soucy decided five years ago that when he died he wanted to join his shipmates killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Soucy lived to be 90, passing away just last year. Seven decades after dozens of fellow sailors were killed when the USS Utah sank on Dec. 7, 1941, a Navy diver on Tuesday was to take a small urn containing his ashes and place it in a porthole of the ship.
The ceremony is one of five memorials being held this week for servicemen who lived through the assault and want their remains placed in Pearl Harbor out of pride and affinity for those they left behind.
“They want to return and be with the shipmates that they lost during the attack,” said Jim Taylor, a retired sailor who coordinates the ceremonies.
The memorials are happening the same week the country observes the 70th anniversary of the aerial bombing that killed 2,390 Americans and brought the United States into World War II. A larger ceremony to remember all those who perished will be held today just before 8 a.m. Hawaii time - the same moment the devastating attack began.
Most of the 12 ships that sank or were beached that day were removed from the harbor, their metal hulls salvaged for scrap. Just the Utah and the USS Arizona still lie in the dark-blue waters. Only survivors of those vessels may return in death to their ships.
The cremated remains of Vernon Olsen, who served aboard the Arizona, will be interred on his ship during a sunset ceremony today. The ashes of three other survivors are being scattered in the harbor.
Soucy, the youngest of seven children, joined the Navy out of high school so he wouldn’t burden his parents. In 1941 he was a pharmacist’s mate, trained to care for the sick and wounded.
He had just finished breakfast that Sunday morning when he saw planes dropping bombs on airplane hangars. He rushed to his battle station after feeling the Utah lurch but soon heard the call to abandon ship as the vessel began sinking. He swam to shore, where he made a makeshift first-aid center to help the wounded and dying. He worked straight through for two days.
The Utah lost nearly 60 men on Dec. 7, and about 50 are still entombed in the battleship. Today, the rusting hull of the Utah lies on its side next to Ford Island, not far from where it sank 70 years ago.
Soucy’s daughter, Margaret, said her parents had initially planned to have their ashes interred together at their church in Plainview, Texas. But her father changed his mind after visiting Pearl Harbor for the 65th anniversary in 2006.
“He announced that he wanted to be interred on the Utah. And my mother looked a little hurt and perplexed. And I said, ‘Don’t worry Daddy, I’ll take that part of your ashes that was your mouth and I’ll have those interred on the Utah. And you can then tell those that have preceded you, including those that were entombed, what’s been going on in the world,’ “ Margaret Soucy recalled saying with a laugh.
” ‘And the rest of your remains we will put with mother in the church gardens at St. Mark’s.’ And then my sister spoke up and said, ‘Yes, then mother can finally rest in peace,’ “ she said.
The family had longed kidded Soucy for being talkative - they called him “Mighty Mouth” - so Margaret Soucy said her father laughed and agreed. “He just thought that was hilarious,” she said.
“So that is what we are doing. We’re taking only a portion of his ashes. It’s going to be a small urn,” she said.
Soucy’s three children, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren - 11 family members altogether - were to attend the sunset ceremony Tuesday. His wife died earlier this year.
An urn carrying the ashes of Vernon Olsen, who was among the 334 on the Arizona to survive the attack, will be interred in a gun turret on the Arizona today. Most of the battleship’s 1,177 sailors and Marines who died on Dec. 7 are still entombed on the ship.
Five months after Pearl Harbor Olsen was on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington when it sank during the Battle of the Coral Sea.
“I used to tell him he had nine lives. He was really lucky,” said his widow, Jo Ann Olsen.
He passed away in April at 91 after a bout of pneumonia.
Pearl Harbor interment and ash-scattering ceremonies began in the late 1980s, and started growing in number as more survivors heard about them.
Taylor has helped 265 survivors return to Pearl Harbor. The vast majority have had their ashes scattered. He’s arranged for the remains of about 20 Arizona survivors to be placed in the Arizona and about a dozen to be put in the Utah.
“These guys are heroes, OK? Fact is, in my opinion, anybody that’s ever served in the military and wore the uniform are heroes. That’s why you and I can breathe today in a free country.
“So I just appreciate what they did,” he said.
IF YOU GO
• A plastic model of a battleship to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor will be presented today by the Tucson chapter of the International Plastic Modelers Society. The model will be on display from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the patio courtyard of the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System, 3601 S. Sixth Ave.
• The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway, will host a special Pearl Harbor Day screening of “From Here to Eternity” at 7 p.m. today.
Did you know?
The bell in the University of Arizona’s Student Union clock tower is one of two original bells that were salvaged from the Arizona in 1941.
The other original bell is on display at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.