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10/16/2024 08:30 AMAlfred Giordano — also known as “Babe” to his friends — was just 18 years old when he was called to serve his country during World War II. But this humble, lifelong Branford resident, born 100 years ago on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 1924, has always said his WWII service pales in comparison to those sent into battle.
On Oct. 1, Babe spoke with The Sound about his recollections of growing up in Branford, serving during WWII, returning home to start his own business in town, and raising his family in Branford, a place he’s always loved.
Both of his parents immigrated to Branford from Italy. Babe’s dad, a relative of Branford’s Sansone family, came to America thanks to $60 his aunt sent to cover the cost of steerage.
“They left Italy because there was no work,” says Babe. “My father arrived in Branford from Italy on May 24, 1905, and he was working the next day.”
His dad worked at the former Malleable Iron Fittings company on Indian Neck Avenue. The job was a stone’s throw from the family’s home on Terhune Avenue, which is still in the family. The family home is situated along the Branford River on land that still backs up to the property of the present-day Sansone’s farm. Babe’s dad also grew vegetables in a garden, which he sold door-to-door in town, Babe recalls.
Within two or three months of arriving in Branford, Babe’s dad sent for his wife, who arrived with their first child, born soon after he left Italy. Babe earned his nickname as the baby of 10 children. He was a member of Branford’s first kindergarten class, which gathered at the former Harrison Avenue School. Today, two Branford elementary schools carry the names of his former teachers, Mary R. Tisko and Mary T. Murphy. Babe was the only one of his siblings to graduate high school, attending in the building which is now Sliney Elementary School.
On the day before Christmas 1942, Babe was drafted into the U.S. Army. He reported for duty on Jan. 6, 1943. Babe was put through a number of different schools and training programs, including an Army Ordinance school in Lansing, Michigan. The school was set up in an Oldsmobile plant, which had been transformed for the war effort to make heavy machine guns.
“It was a night class, and when we walked in, the instructor said we would learn to repair the guns, but first of all, we would learn to take them apart and put them together blindfolded. I sort of laughed up my sleeve at that,” Babe says. “But we did learn to do it, blindfolded, in a week. They made 30-caliber and 50-caliber machine guns in that plant. It was a three-week course, one full week on each gun.”
He was also temporarily transferred from the Army into the U.S. Navy and sent to the Navy’s Mine Warfare School in Yorktown, Virginia.
“I was trained in naval mines and aerial mines. The Germans used acoustic mines, which were set off by the sound of the ships’ motors,” says Babe. “They were used on the coast of Norway when they invaded there. The British found these big parachutes; and they couldn’t figure out what they were from, and they kept looking around and found the mines that had detached from them. The Germans attached the mines to the parachutes with a hardened salt washer, which would eventually dissolve in the water. Those Germans were pretty sharp people!”
Due to the multitude of training programs he underwent, after six months in the Army, Babe was promoted to the rank of sergeant at 18 years of age. That was his rank when Babe was stationed at a military bomber base at historic Wendover Field, Utah, where crews were being made up to ship out.
One day, he recalls, “I was walking down the company street, and somebody yelled, ‘Sergeant Giordano!’ It was a captain, and he had a file in his hand. He said, ‘Pack your bags; you’re going to Washington D.C.’”
According to his file, among his many skills, Babe was listed as an Italian interpreter. After the captain explained that Babe was being sent to Washington to become an interpreter, Babe remembers replying, “‘You got that wrong!’’’ he says, laughing.
“I didn’t speak Italian! My father did not use Italian in the house. He came here and had to go to night school to learn English,” says Babe.
Nevertheless, Babe was one of a huge swath of American soldiers sent to Washington, D.C. as potential Italian interpreters for the military.
“They came by the hundreds. They set us up in a tent city. I never realized there were so many people in the United States that spoke Italian and were young enough to serve,” says Babe.
Then came the interview.
“The man who interviewed me was educated; maybe he was a college professor. He said to me in Italian, ‘Where were you born?’ and I answered in English, ‘Branford, Connecticut!’ And that was the end of the interview! They were looking for men that were born and raised in Italy that were fluent in Italian.”
Babe and about 40 other men who weren’t accepted for the translator program spent nine months assigned to a military district in Washington D.C. Next, he was placed as as an armorer with the 33rd Ordinance Company at Fort Buchanan, a military installation in Puerto Rico. The base included a depot for the Army Antilles Department and processed local troops. Babe recalls he arrived in Puerto Rico on May 24, 1944.
“I was a gun mechanic. I was taught to repair any gun that was on the B-52 bombers: the 50-caliber machine gun, the 30-caliber machine gun, the 37-millimeter cannon,” says Babe. “We had a repair building where we worked. So I was an ordinance man, and at times I taught school, too.”
Babe completed his military service in March of 1946 at the rank of staff sergeant. While he would have gladly served overseas (Puerto Rico was not designated as overseas by the Army) and in battle, Babe says he never had the chance. That’s why he feels very humble when speaking about his WWII service.
“I was completely out of harm’s way because of the places that I was transferred to. In the States, I was transferred out to places that were non-combative, and Puerto Rico certainly wasn’t combative,” he says.
On the GI Bill, Babe went to Milford Academy and also completed a semester at Syracuse University (New York), before deciding he was ready to get to work in Branford.
“I wanted to run bulldozer! There were eight brothers besides me, and they all ran bulldozers, so I wanted to run a bulldozer,” says Babe. “I quit college, and I came home.”
He worked for a local excavator for 10 years before starting his own excavating business in Branford, Giordano Excavating, in 1959. Babe retired in 1984.
Babe and his late first wife, Beatrice (née Gargamelli, also a Branford native), raised their six kids in Branford: Beatrice, Germaine, Lisa, Nancy, Mark, and Paul. The couple eventually moved from the family home on Terhune Avenue to a bigger home on Chestnut Street as the family grew. Thirty-six years ago, Babe remarried. He and his wife, Florence, known as “Dolly” (now 94 years old), have resided on Terhune Avenue.
“Married life is the greatest thing. I’ve done it twice, and both times with wonderful women,” says Babe.
He also credits his children for their loving support, including the around-the-clock care he’s received since April. He’s also grateful for homecare assistance provided through Veterans Affairs; the palliative and spiritual assistance he recently began receiving through Hospice care; as well as the support of St. John Bosco Parish in Branford, for which Babe was a lector for many years.
In addition to raising six children, Babe is patriarch to a family which also includes 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. Last November, his family celebrated Babe’s 99th birthday with a big party thrown by his children.
Sadly, news of Alfred Giordano’s passing earlier this week arrived as The Sound went to press with this article. The Sound extends heartfelt condolences to his family.