Alexander Trybulski

Alexander Trybulski

World War II Hero - A Selection of War Stories from Alex’s Journals.

Alex Trybulski, age 103, is a decorated war veteran from Saginaw, MI, who fought in World War II, along with 16.1 million other members of the American Armed Forces who were drafted or volunteered to fight. According to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, as of Memorial Day, 2020, approximately 300,000 WWII veterans were still alive in the USA. Each has a memory of the war, a tale of bloody fighting, death, and heroism.

Alex Trybulski is one of those WWII Veterans. These are some of his memories from the war.

“I was 25 years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and I knew right away that it was a ‘Goodbye Joe’ moment,” says Alex. “Goodbye Joe” is a favorite phrase he uses to describe situations up the road that looked dangerous. He didn’t know it yet, but there would be many “Goodbye Joe” moments in the next four years.

Service Medals and Awards

Alex received ten medals, including a purple heart, and the Infantry Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism. (The 96th Infantry Division - The ‘Deadeyes’ - was one of only four US divisions in military history to have earned the Presidential Citation, customarily given to battalionsize units). Alex also received the “Combat Infantry” medal years later. He treasures that one the most because it shows he was actually IN combat.

Draft and Training

Alex was drafted in April 1944 and left for basic training in Louisiana’s swamps with scorpions, tarantulas, spiders, and coral snakes. After basic training, he was shipped to California, assigned to the 125th Infantry in Griffith Park (where tents were set up amid the swimming pools and tennis courts between Hollywood and Los Angeles). During his stay, a Japanese submarine came perilously close to and fired on the California coast just north of Hollywood.

Alex and his fellow infantrymen were assigned to guard an antitank gun on the coast at Pebble Beach between two well-known golf holes, the 7th, and the 8th. He transferred to the 96th Division after about a year.

The 96th Division and More Training

The 96th Division received extra training in Medford, Oregon and word came that they were about to be shipped out. But first, Alex and his fellow infantrymen practiced landing on the shores of San Diego, working with the landing craft nets for about a week. Then they were off to Hawaii. Once there, they practiced jungle training for six weeks. They would prow through the jungles at nights, practicing with a different variety of guns. Their division was assigned to General Douglas MacArthur.

World War II Memories by Alex

“We prepared for the invasion of the Philippine Islands. I knew this was a ‘Goodbye Joe’ moment for sure. But we were lucky,” Alex said. “We were able to get in the landing area quite fast. We ran into swampland and rice paddies and realized this was the reason it was so lightly defended.”

Their platoon was sent later to an airfield. One morning, Alex and his buddy were standing by a runway and saw aircraft approaching. To them, it looked like ten of their planes were approaching the land. But as they came closer, they realized they were Japanese planes.

“They were so close that we could see the big red ball on the planes’ sides, and their pilots were strafing and bombing as they came over. We jumped behind what looked like cordwood covered with a tarp. My buddy asked if I knew what it was, but I didn’t. It turned out to be a pile of 57 mm ammo for anti-tank gun… one scary moment. It would have been a ‘Goodbye Joe’ for sure if any of the bombs or strafing had struck it.”

After several other ‘Goodbye Joe’ moments, they were on the island with nobody. Neither the Japanese nor Americans were coming in or going out. Meals were going to be a problem. And boy they were.

Alex joked, “We ate nothing but SPAM three times a day for a whole month - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But we had cigarettes!” Nearly 80 years later, he can smile as he tells this story. “We got most of our cigarettes from the Filipinos. Earlier, we had been giving them the cigarettes we had on us to be friendly. Now they were selling them to us for $1 a pack!”

“Later, we were called to assist our front-line troops fighting off the Japanese in a Banzai attack, which meant about 100 or more Japanese infantry, armed with rifles and bayonets, charged as one. Luckily it didn’t happen, and nobody got hurt... until later that night.”

Alex and two other GIs were on patrol and came face to face with an enemy soldier sitting against a tree who lunged toward them. After one shot, the enemy fell down. There was a loud explosion from a land mine underneath the enemy soldier as he landed.

“That was when I was hit with shrapnel in my knee. It was a clean cut. I didn’t even feel it until it started to bleed, Alex stated. “I was treated at a field hospital, and it healed well. Then I was back to the battle.”

Later on, they found out that the Japanese soldier was a part of a group of Japanese marine paratroops who had landed in the same field. They killed the Americans as they slept in their tents, then rolled barrels of gasoline under the planes and set them afire.

A Selection of Alex’s Memories (in his words) from the Okinawa, Japan Campaign

“On April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday, my buddy and I held the landing net from a small landing craft when a massive water wave moved us. We were lucky that landing craft moved us from the ship we were in, or we would have lost 3-4 of my squad before ever touching land! When we landed, we ran head-on into small firearms, machine guns, and mortar fire.”

“My squad and I were then sent to guard an observation post. As I had my men spread out, a shot rang out, and one of my men right next to me was hit. Unfortunately, he was accidentally shot by one of our men behind us. I took him to an aid station where he said he was hit in the shoulder. Fortunately, a shot in the arm, leg, or shoulder was called a “million-dollar wound” by the GIs as they usually get sent back to the States.”

“Later, after working our way toward high ground across the island, it had a lot of flat ground in front of it, we were stopped dead in our tracks. The Navy shelled the high ground all week. The Navy planes dropped firebombs, and enemy planes dropped bombs, our division artillery shelled the high ground. But when we started to attack, we were stopped cold again. We waited a few days and made a midnight assault across the island and finally got a foothold on the high ground.”

“We were again digging in for the night when six planes started firing at our men on our left. We could see they were our planes, and they were circling back at us to shoot. We opened our “smoke-colored bombs,” which we carry to show we are friendly troops. We stood there waving. As they were ready to shoot, they finally saw who we were and flapped their wings to let us know. The lead plane came right over me, which was kind of scary.”

“I had a litter (a rescue basket for the wounded) and medic team on the front line when a soldier got hit. They patched up his back and gave him a Morphine shot. As we started to carry him down a hill, a Japanese soldier with an automatic rifle shot at us, so we had to jump back. I asked the wounded soldier if he could hang on, and he said yes. So we started running, with the enemy shooting down the hill. We got in a ditch at the bottom of the hill, and the firing finally stopped.”

“We took a little rest and started to go up a steep bank that was going over a road. The firing started again, so we had to turn back. It was getting dark, so I knew we could not stay there. I also knew if we went up over the road, we were “dead ducks.” I looked around and saw a creek that went under the road, so I told my team to go that way. We made a run for the creek under the road and made it to the field hospital before dark. It was a standing rule in our division that anything that moved after dark was fired at.”

“As we worked our way to the high ground of the island, I could see our American ships in the bay, and it looked like there were a million of them! I could see ships all afire, burning, smoking, and firing at the Japanese planes. The Japanese had fighter bombers and Kamikaze planes all over the place. The Kamikaze was a “hero” pilot trained to fly a plane off the ground and follow the fighters to the targets with an aircraft that had a massive bomb to dive into our large ships. They had orders to bomb our large ships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, or a battlewagon. The Kamikaze planes came in a wave of 50 to 100 planes at a time. We finally made our way to the island’s southern tip, where the Japanese finally gave up.”

A Selection of Alex’s Memories (in his words) from the Philippines

“After the Okinawa Campaign, our division went back to the Philippines to receive new equipment and get replacements for we had 7,000 causalities and 1,500 killed. We were scheduled to invade the homeland of Japan. After we were back in the Philippines, my company’s 57mm guns were replaced by 76mm tank destroyers. They were like a tank, but light and fast. We were able to fire more accurately when moving. I was in charge of the one which we had to train with.”

“After the “A-bombs” were dropped, the war ended shortly after. The high point men of our division and I were sent to meet with another division to be sent home early, but we were shipped to another island in the Philippines for more training when the war ended. We were stuck there for several months with nothing to do but play cards. If you were wondering what we played, it was the trick-taking game of pinochle repeatedly. I was FINALLY shipped home November 27, 1945, six months AFTER the war ended. I was “Honorably Discharged” on Christmas Eve, 1945.”

Returning Home

Alex Trybulski was in the service for more than five years and returned home a 31-year-old bachelor. “I was supposed to be one of the first one’s home; instead, we were stuck in Mindanao, an island in the Philippines,” Alex stated. “On my homecoming, you would have thought there had never been a World War. I missed out on the cheers, the parades, the welcome home parades or parties. The war had been over for six months; nobody in town was wearing uniforms. Men were returning to jobs, getting married, buying homes, waiting to buy new cars, having children. I wore my uniform downtown twice and got curious stares. All the others had packed their uniforms away. It was a new world.”

Life seemed to move on. Alex went back to his old job at Saginaw Industries (Plating), and he met his beautiful and fun-loving wife and nurse, Susan Bundshuh. They were married in 1955 and married 55 years. She passed away in 2010. They had four daughters that turned into ten grandchildren, 19 greatgrandchildren, and two great, great-grandchildren.

“After the war, I fell right back into a routine, like everyone else. Serving the army gave me a strong work ethic, a daily routine to follow (like morning sit-ups and pushups), and a chance to devote my life to my wife and daughters. I even showed my grandkids how to fish, play cards, and appreciate a good polka. During training and the war, I met some lifelong friends. The army reunions were something I ALWAYS looked forward to; we shared life stories on the battlefield and off, sometimes with a drink in our hands. It was a brotherhood of friends and comrades I will never forget. It was an honor to serve our country.” -Alex Trybulski

It is our honor to share some WWII memories from a 103-year-old Veteran. We at GATHER VETERANS thank you, Sir, for your service to our country.