SAM PLATAMONE
Age: 84
Born: Jan. 24, 1926
Hometown: Cleveland
Residence: Rancho Mirage
Military branch: U.S. Army; 42nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division; 222nd Infantry Regiment; 3rd Battalion; K Company
Years served: January 1944- September 1946
Rank: Sergeant major
Family: Wife Christine (deceased); three children, Steve Platamone of Williamsburg, Va., Sandy Platamone of San Clemente and Christopher Platamone of Palm Desert; five grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II 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
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Samuel Klein of Palm Desert.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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Sam Platamone got his first taste of combat — as an 18-year-old U.S. Army private with the 42nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division — during the bloody Battle of the Bulge.
The Allied front lines collapsed on Dec. 16, 1944, when the Germans launched a major offensive in the Ardennes Mountain region of Belgium, France and Luxembourg.
The division arrived in France just days before the attack.
“The Germans broke through and they threw us up there,” Platamone said.
“I moved into a frontline foxhole on Christmas Eve, 1944,” he said. “I spent 33 straight days in the snow trying to stay alive — trying to beat the weather and beat the enemy.”
“We weren't even dressed for the cold weather,” he said. “We were running patrols all the time, reconnaissance work, everything. In spite of all that — I got shot at a lot but I never got a scratch.”
The division defended a 30-mile plus section along the Rhine River near Strasbourg.
In the waning days of the battle, Company K was assigned to hold down 1,900 yards of French countryside south of the Moder River, just east of Neubourg, France.
“Our company strength was down to 116 men and officers and with General Patton's Third Army having fought its way to the beleaguered defenders of Bastogne, our Seventh Army was spread especially thin. Holding down what had formerly been a two-army main line of resistance was extremely challenging.”
“Our second platoon's assignment was to prevent the Germans from crossing the river at its most accessible point,” he said. “We were mandated to protect the Third Battalion's right flank. The order was to ‘Hold at all cost.'”
Platamone recalled an incident during this time involving the death of Capt. Harold Bugno on Jan. 26, 1945.
Platamone said his captain rounded up the last few men who were still functional and moved them out.
“I moved out to the right of Captain Bugno, my rifle cradled in my arms,” he said. “My fingers were so frozen that I couldn't grasp the weapon in my hands, let alone fire it. I was stunned when Captain Bugno leaped directly behind me, thrusting me face down into the snow.”
Platamone could see Bugno, “Whipping his carbine to his shoulder, firing it three times. Hearing three thuds, I looked forward. Three German soldiers lay dead in front of me. In the dense woods, we had blindly walked into each other.”
Unbeknownst to the men, a German forward artillery observer spotted their patrol as they advanced into the open, flat, river bottom.
“We were caught flat-footed by a barrage of 150 millimeter shells that were zeroed right on top of us,” he said.
Platamone ran to the base of huge tree growing next to the river bank, “Embracing it with the little strength that remained in me,” he said.
“The virgin white ground around us soon became a grotesque abstract of ragged furrows and red splashes. When the barrage subsided, Captain Bugno lay dead just a few feet from me. He had made it back as far as the second platoon side of the wash before a huge shell fragment had embedded itself between his shoulder blades. Death was instantaneous.”
“We lost a lot of guys,” he said. “They brought a lot of new people in to refurbish the battalion.”
Platamone moved quickly up the ranks, from private to sergeant major of the battalion.
“Because so many guys died, they had to keep promoting guys,” he explained.
“Everybody's frightened but you learn to cope,” he said. “Somebody needs to stand tall. You did what you had to do to stay alive. I loved life and I had a nice family to come home to — mom, dad, brothers, sister.”
“It was quite an experience,” he said, adding, “I'm a better person for it. I learned to appreciate the little things.”
“I was really lucky to get through it all,” he said. “My mother must have been praying around the clock for me.”
“Almost four months more of fighting against a persistent enemy had led me to believe that I had seen the worst that life had to offer,” he said. “But that was before I arrived at Dachau.”
On April 29, 1945, Platamone and his company arrived at the notorious German death camp.
“I saw sights that day that are imprinted on my mind forever.”
Before entering the camp, Platamone saw a train of some 50 boxcars, each containing about 30 dead bodies.
The train contained prisoners that had arrived from the Buchenwald death camp. The prisoners had been left for days without food or water and most died of exposure, malnutrition and dehydration, he said.
Others who lived were gunned down by the Germans when it became apparent the camp would soon be liberated.
“This served as a harbinger of the hell we could expect when we entered the camp itself,” he said.
“In the buildings adjacent to the ovens, I saw stacked-up bodies,” Platamone said. “Because of the Germans' stalled war effort, they had run out of coal to stoke the incinerators.”
At Dachau, “We saw what we'd been fighting for,” he said. “We saw what the Germans did to the poor people. You wouldn't believe what human beings could do to each other — but they did.”
