Personal Narrative Film, Video Manuscript/Mixed Material Photo, Print, Drawing Joseph Peter Vaghi Collection
Veterans History Project Service Summary:
- War or Conflict: World War, 1939-1945
- Branch of Service: Navy
- Unit of Service: USS Neshoba (APA 216); C-8 Platoon, 6th Naval Beach Battalion; Navy Reserve
- Location of Service:
- Highest Rank: Lieutenant Commander
- Collection Number: AFC/2001/001/44465
Joseph Vaghi was a Beachmaster at Normandy on June 6, 1944, a job he described "much like a traffic cop at a very busy intersection." Beachmasters controlled the flow of men off the ships, communicated with men already on land and ships at sea, and oversaw tending of the wounded. Vaghi was the first man off his LCI (Landing Craft Infantry), which soon afterwards took a hit from an enemy shell. That day, he witnessed many acts of heroism, saw the oldest man in his company killed in an explosion, and ran into a college classmate who asked him, "Hi Joe, what the hell are you doing here?"
Interview / Recording
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PlaySplitting high school between Bethel and Danbury, Connecticut; got a scholarship to Providence; Pearl Harbor interrupted his education; enlisted in Navy; to midshipman's school at Notre Dame; chosen commander of building he was living in. 00:06:49.7 - 00:10:08.7
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PlayTo Camp Radford, Virginia; assigned to Beach Battalion group, made a Beachmaster; trained in Florida and Virginia; trained with Army in England; composition of Beach Battalion, which was responsible for the men up to the high water mark of Normandy Beach; from there the Army took over. 00:10:23.1 - 00:13:44.2
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PlayReady to go on June 5, but bad weather stopped them; landed at 7:35 a.m.; training helped everything come naturally except for the deaths; things went easy after the first day; was there long enough to celebrate his 24th birthday, June 27, on the beach. 00:13:44.8 - 00:15:32.2
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PlayBack to the States; stationed in California; made an instructor, but he didn't like it; asked to ship out again; worked on landings in Pacific; Tokyo Rose broadcast predicting the date of the Okinawa landing on Easter Sunday; kamikaze attacks; set for invasion of Japan until atomic bomb ended the war. 00:15:58.5 - 00:19:25.4
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PlayRecalling where he was when he heard about Pearl Harbor; that same day, a fellow student drowned when he went through the ice while skating. 00:25:05.4 - 00:26:20.6
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PlayNot knowing when and where the Normandy invasion would take place; put into a sealed marshalling area and briefed about details of invasion; seeing photographs of the landing area taken by Allied submarines; first night on beach, rumors of a counterattack that didn't come off; Hitler's miscalculation on location of landing; Vaghi guessing the date of the invasion by the tide charts; big difference in high and low tide on those beaches; soldiers drowning in the surf because of the tide. 00:31:05.6 - 00:38:35.9
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PlayHow the soldiers' life belts when inflated with their heavy back packs tipped them forward and drowned them; not covered in training; why the decision was made to go in at low tide. 00:39:00.5 - 00:41:41.5
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PlayTraining of great help to doing their job that day on the beach; didn't think about himself; concentrated on the job he was to do; his platoon lost only one man who was hit by a jeep that had been thrown into the air by a shell; he was knocked unconscious by the impact; Germans calculating coordinates for their big guns. 00:45:13.5 - 00:51:07.0
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PlayHis duties on the beach; communicating between land and sea and making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing; using flags and radios to communicate; relying on training for automatic responses; Germans strafing the beach at night; one man wounded in a slit trench and evacuated. 00:51:41.6 - 00:55:28.1
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PlayHis unit staying on the beach after D-Day; beyond that, the Army was in charge and it was their turf; mission was over June 28 or 29; LSTs kept coming in, but a port to the west was open for most entries; a big storm came through and destroyed many ships. 01:00:36.8 - 01:03:53.8
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PlayLanding at Okinawa was simple; Tokyo Rose had predicted it; they were more fearful than they should have been; kamikaze pilots thwarted by smoke from fires intentionally set; taking out a gun placement in a cave; were meant to be a decoy landing force for the invasion of Japan. 01:05:21.8 - 01:09:20.3
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PlayGoing into Japan; seeing "Kilroy Was Here" painted on a jetty in the bay outside of Tokyo; evidence of bombing destruction; visiting another town, greeted with warmth by locals; an encounter with a bidet; transporting troops back to the States; his promotion. 01:10:11.7 - 01:16:07.4
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PlayAfter-effects of war; not plagued by nightmares; goes frequently to reunions; stays in touch; does not talk about war; seek to promote Navy's role in D-Day. 01:16:27.7 - 01:18:42.2
More Resources
About this Item
Title
- Joseph Peter Vaghi Collection
Names
- Veterans History Project
- Library of Congress
- Vaghi, Joseph Peter
- Williams, Brien R.
Home State
- Maryland
Headings
- - Vaghi, Joseph Peter
- - World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal Narratives
- - United States. Navy.
Repository
- Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Gender
- Male
Race
- Other
Status
- veteran
Service History
-
World War, 1939-1945
- Branch of Service: Navy
- Unit of Service: USS Neshoba (APA 216); C-8 Platoon, 6th Naval Beach Battalion; Navy Reserve
- Location of Service:
- Highest Rank: Lieutenant Commander
- Dates of Service: 1942-1959
- Entrance into Service: Enlisted
- Military Status: veteran
Materials
- Manuscript: Maps [1 item] -- Mixed (handwritten and typewritten documents) (collected 1944-06)
- Manuscript: Book [1 item] -- Typewritten document (collected 1940)
- Manuscript: Diaries and journals [1 item] -- Handwritten document (collected 1944)
- Manuscript: Memoirs [2 items] -- Typewritten document (collected 1994-1995)
- Manuscript: Military papers (orders, personnel/201 files, etc) [1 item] -- Typewritten document (collected 1944)
- Manuscript: Military papers (orders, personnel/201 files, etc) [8 items] -- Mixed (handwritten and typewritten documents) (collected 1944-1946)
- Manuscript: Periodicals [1 item] -- Typewritten document (collected 2002-06)
- Manuscript: Unit histories [29 items] -- Mixed (handwritten and typewritten documents) (collected 1944-2002)
- Video: MiniDV [2 items] -- Oral history interview (collected 2007-04-02)
- Video: DVD [2 items] -- Reference copy (collected 2007-04-02; 2007)
- Manuscript: Memoirs [1 item] -- Typewritten document (collected 2004)
Collection Number
- AFC/2001/001/44465
Cite as
- Joseph Peter Vaghi Collection (AFC/2001/001/44465), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Online Format
- image
- video
Additional Metadata Formats
IIIF Presentation Manifest
Wars & Conflicts
Service Branch
Location of Service
- Boston, Massachusetts
- England
- Japan
- Notre Dame, Indiana
- Okinawa Island (Ryukyu Islands)
- Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Philippines
- Radford, Virginia