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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Clarksburg Sets Tax Rate; Interviews TA Candidate

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Property owners will again see the tax rate drop — and may also see their bills drop as well. 
 
The Select Board on Monday night voted after a tax classification hearing to again maintain a single tax rate. Members also interviewed the first candidate for the town administrator post, former Select Board Chair Ronald Boucher.
 
The average single-family home as increased in value by $13,000, from  $222,151 to $235,243. Using the figures provided, the tax rate should drop from $15.35 per $1,000 assessed value to $13.58.
 
Last year's average single-family home bill was $3,410; this year's is estimated at $3,194, a nearly $200 reduction.
 
Assessor Emily Schilling said the total value of the town is up nearly $9 million over last year, from $158,167,883 to $167,259,371. The bulk of that, just over 95 percent, is residential. The town has 613 single-family homes and 63 other types of residential properties.
 
The amount of taxes to be raised for fund the town's $6.177 million fiscal 2025 budget is $2,271,382. The balance is being funded through state and local receipts, enterprise funds and some $499,371 in free cash. 
 
The board also appointed Thomas Bona to the Board of Assessors. Bona has volunteered a lot of time with projects at the school.
 
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