Henry Dongvillo lives in Desert Hot Springs. / Desert Sun file photo
Henry Dongvillo / Submitted photo
Henry Dongvillo
Age: 88
Hometown: St. Joseph, Mich.
Residence: Desert Hot Springs/ Fountain, Mich.
Military branch: U.S. Army; Third Battalion, 413th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division, Company I
Years served: 1939-1945
Rank: First lieutenant
Medals: Two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts, Combat Infantry Badge, Order of Alexander Nevsky Medal
Family: Eight children
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II Wednesday through Sunday through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com.
For more in the series, visit mydesert.com/wwii.
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U.S. Army veteran Henry Dongvillo said failure was not an option for the men of the 104th Infantry Division fighting the Battle of the Bulge in the dead-cold winter of 1944-45.
“We were told not to fall back,” said Dongvillo. “‘You stay put and you hold the line,'” he said, recalling the orders given to the troops.
First Lt. Dongvillo, who spent 212 days on the front lines, quickly became a hardened combat veteran — laser-focused at all times on keeping himself and his troops alive.
“I had no girls, no wife, I was there for one purpose — to fight the damn war,” he said. “I didn't make any mistakes. I was paying attention all of the time. It was my life and the life of my troops.”
Dongvillo earned two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars for his actions in battle, including taking down enemy machine gun nests or artillery positions, throwing hand grenades into enemy positions, then charging toward German soldiers and firing away with his Browning automatic rifle.
He was awarded two Purple Hearts for injuries sustained in combat.
“I was known as ‘Hammering Hank,'” he said.
“I was 119 pounds at the end of the war,” he said. “I was a lean, mean, fighting machine.”
When the infantry units were on the move, they would hop on the back of Sherman tanks.
Ten men could fit on the back of a tank, Dongvillo said.
On one occasion, at a crossroads, dirt and dust were kicking up all over, he said.
“A tanker accidentally shot a high explosive shell into a tank in front of him,” Dongvillo said.
Dongvillo was ordered to salvage the guns from the damaged tank, but to do so required a gut-wrenching task.
“We had to scrape the flesh and blood off the tanks,” he said.
The carnage was so horrific there was hardly anything left of the men's bodies.
Dongvillo said he noticed something strange after the accident.
“The ground was cushiony,” he said. Looking down, “it was soaked with flesh and blood.”
Dongvillo, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Central Europe, learned how to speak the basics of several languages while growing up in Michigan — including Polish, Russian, Lithuanian and German.
“I got a nickel for every new word I remembered between my mother's house and my grandmother's house,” he said.
Dongvillo said he spoke “street Russian.”
His early linguistic training afforded him the opportunity to play a pivotal role in the closing months of the war in Europe.
“Towards the end of the war there was about 35 miles between the American lines and the Russian lines,” Dongvillo said.
Dongvillo heard the Army was looking for someone who spoke Russian to volunteer to meet with Russian military officials to coordinate the merging of the two lines.
“Next morning I'm up in a Piper Cub plane,” heading for the Russian front lines.
Dongvillo taught the Russians a few words of English and explained, in Russian, how U.S. infantry units were broken down and how they operated— to prepare both sides for a seamless merging of armies.
Dongvillo was later awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky medal, a Russian military honor bestowed during World War II.
More than 40,000 Soviet servicemen received the honor; Dongvillo is one of only about 70 foreign generals or officers to receive the distinction.
