Oral History Interview with Al D'Agostino, April 19, 2012 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Al D'Agostino, April 19, 2012

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Al D’Agostino. D’Agostino joined the Merchant Marine in 1945 and received training in Brooklyn. Upon completion, he was assigned to the SS Monterey where he worked as a butcher. His first trip to the Pacific was transporting European troops, who were unhappy about the looming invasion of Japan. The war ended while the Monterey was in transit, and the soldiers returning home were a much happier bunch. Even more joyful was the reunion of families when the Monterey picked up war brides and their babies from all over the Pacific and brought them back to the States. He transferred to a Liberty ship that brought German war criminals back to the States from South America, although he believes that the majority of the passengers were actually concentration camp survivors. D’Agostino was discharged but was drafted again during the Korean War and served as a radio relay operator atop a mountain in dangerous and harsh winter conditions. When he was discharged a second time, he applied his kitchen experience and attended Cornell’s hotel school. D’Agostino became the director of food service for Trans World Airlines. Before retiring, he moved …
Date: April 19, 2012
Creator: D'Agostino, Al
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Al D'Agostino, April 19, 2012 transcript

Oral History Interview with Al D'Agostino, April 19, 2012

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Al D’Agostino. D’Agostino joined the Merchant Marine in 1945 and received training in Brooklyn. Upon completion, he was assigned to the SS Monterey where he worked as a butcher. His first trip to the Pacific was transporting European troops, who were unhappy about the looming invasion of Japan. The war ended while the Monterey was in transit, and the soldiers returning home were a much happier bunch. Even more joyful was the reunion of families when the Monterey picked up war brides and their babies from all over the Pacific and brought them back to the States. He transferred to a Liberty ship that brought German war criminals back to the States from South America, although he believes that the majority of the passengers were actually concentration camp survivors. D’Agostino was discharged but was drafted again during the Korean War and served as a radio relay operator atop a mountain in dangerous and harsh winter conditions. When he was discharged a second time, he applied his kitchen experience and attended Cornell’s hotel school. D’Agostino became the director of food service for Trans World Airlines. Before retiring, he moved …
Date: April 19, 2012
Creator: D'Agostino, Al
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History

Oral History Interview with Alfred Czerner, January 16, 1990

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Interview with Alfred Czerner, a Army WWII veteran and German-Jewish expatriate from Frankfurt-am-Main. Czerner discusses growing up in the crises of the Weimar Republic, politics at the time, his parents' background, the Jewish community in Frankfurt and Jewish identity, his father's unemployment after the rise of the Nazis, fleeing Germany and moving to Brooklyn in 1938, news of concentration camps, work in New York, attending school and perfecting his English, becoming an Army intelligence officer, service at Camp Ritchie with Henry Kissinger and meeting Eleanor Roosevelt, transfer to Europe and service with the 78th Infantry Division, witnessing Buchwenwald, service in Berlin postwar and operations carried out there, meeting and marrying his wife, and reflections on the Holocaust.
Date: January 16, 1990
Creator: Rosen, Keith & Czerner, Alfred
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library

Third Reich Finale: as Witnessed by John L. Hancock, 259th Field Artillery Battalion

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Army WWII veteran John L. Hancock's autobiographical accounts of his service with the 259th Field Artillery Battalion in the final months of the European Theater. The book features five separate accounts on the Battle of the Bulge, Remagen, liberating Buchenwald, occupation duty in Germany, and returning to the US.
Date: August 11, 2003
Creator: Hancock, John L.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library