WWII Soldier Coming Home Friday

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Bernard Calvi
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — A World War II hero will be returning to the Berkshires on Friday night, 82 years after he died as a prisoner of war in the Philippines.
 
Pvt. First Class Bernard Calvi's body will arrive from Hawaii on Friday and will be taken to Paciorek Funeral Home in Adams that evening. 
 
A welcome home standout will take place on Hoosac Street in Adams beginning at 8 p.m. Calvi is set to arrive at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut at approximately 6:40 p.m. and arrive at Paciorek Funeral Home about 8:20. 
 
Calvi had enlisted in the Army Air Forces in September 1940. He and William P. Gilman Jr. of North Adams, good friends and classmates, had been stationed in the Philippines with the 17th Pursuit Squadron five weeks before Imperial Japan launched its attack against United States and Allied installations across the South Pacific. 
 
They disappeared after the fall of Corregidor, an island in Manila Bay to which U.S. forces had retreated, in May 1942. Calvi's parents, Lena and Joseph of Quincy Street, were informed in 1945 that their son had died July 16, 1942, at Cabanatuan Prison Camp after surviving the Bataan Death March. Gilman died a month later.
 
Some 2,800 prisoners died in the camp after suffering from starvation, disease and dysentery. They were buried in makeshift communal graves, which made identifying and recovering remains after the war difficult, according to the Department of Defense's POW/MIA Accounting Agency. 
 
DPAA is tasked with recovering American service members missing in action and had played a key role in the recovery of Pvt. First Class Erwin S. King of Clarksburg from Guadalcanal. King was buried at Southview Cemetery on Sept. 24. 
 
Calvi was 23 when he died. Like King, his immediately family had passed away but this nieces and nephews and cousins had continued efforts to find him and bring him home. 
 
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church on Tuesday, Dec. 10, and burial with military honors will follow in the family lot in Southview Cemetery. 
 
A calling hour will be held at the church on Tuesday beginning at 10:30 a.m.

Tags: POW/MIA,   WWII,   

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Veteran Spotlight: Navy Senior Chief Lester Connolly

By Wayne SoaresSpecial to iBerkshires

Senior Chief Lester Connolly, seen above and at right, served in the Navy for 28 years as a flight engineer. He saw a flight of planes overhead at age 11 and was so struck by the sight it that he made a career out of flying. The Dorchester native served around the globe and spent many years in California before moving back to Massachusetts.
SANDWICH, Mass. — Lester Connolly served his country in the Navy as a senior chief from 1950 to 1978. 
 
Born in Dorchester, he was one of six children born to Irish immigrants William and Mary Ellen Connolly. At 92 years of age, he is sharp as a tack and speaks with humility and pride.
 
"Both my parent came directly from Ireland," he said. "Mom went to church every day. She would tell me 'the only two people at church were me and the priest.'"
 
He grew up with an immensely strong work ethic at a very young age. "Started work at  11 years old," he said. "Everywhere I went, I ran — used a pushcart to deliver groceries — everything I made, I always put on the table for my mother."
 
Connolly would enlist after his high school graduation at the tender age of 17 and do his basic training at the Squantum Naval Air Station. "Didn't bother me at all, the physical and mental part. I was with a good group of people," he recalled. 
 
Military service was part of Connolly's family: his father served during World War I, his older brother Bill was a glider pilot with the Airborne, brother Jimmy was a Marine and brother Jack was in the Army. He also had two sisters. 
 
His first assignment would be right at Squantum for anti-submarine warfare where he would receive on the job training as a flight engineer. Connolly not only worked on the airplanes but would fly them as well. 
 
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