Joe Balocco
Age: 91
Born: Aug. 29, 1919
Hometown: Redwood City, Calif.
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army; 84th Infantry “Railsplitters” Division; 333rd Anti-tank Battalion
Years served: December 1942 - 1946
Rank: Corporal
Family: Wife Sarah; son Dick Balocco of Indian Wells; two grandchildren; one great-grandchild.
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U.S. Army veteran Joe Balocco, a member of the 84th Infantry Division, 333rd Anti-tank Battalion, spent most of his time in front of the front lines, searching for enemy gun emplacements.
“We had to look where to set up our guns against their tanks,” Balocco said.
Balocco, a jeep driver, chauffeured a lieutenant and another soldier during these reconnaissance operations.
“I was captured one day,” Balocco said, almost offhandedly.
I was around mid-April, 1945 — just after President Franklin Roosevelt died.
The men were out scouting for a place to put a large group of recently captured German POWs. In the middle of a big, open area, they ran into about 75 enemy soldiers.
“They got out in the street with guns drawn at us,” he said. “I asked the lieutenant, ‘You want to stop or go?' He said we'd better stop.”
Three German soldiers jumped into the jeep — one next to Balocco.
“He had the gun pointed at my head and told me which road to take, where to go. I was scared. I never thought I'd see Redwood City (his hometown) again.”
After driving some distance, the men were ordered out of the jeep.
“I told them, ‘We better not walk together. We better walk far apart. They shoot you in the back.'”
Fortunately, no shots were fired.
The men were separated and Balocco was brought before a commanding officer.
One of the men at the German camp spoke English.
“He said, ‘I think they're going to let you go,' but I didn't believe it until it happened. I was going to try to run, but there were too many guns there watching me.”
Balocco has a theory about why the men were released without harm.
“They were caught in the pocket,” surrounded by U.S. troops. They probably thought, ‘If we kill them, they'll kill us.' They were disorganized then.
“They let me go that afternoon.”
Early action overseas
The 84th division arrived in France in early November of 1944, then moved on to Holland, where the men were attached to the British 21st Army Group under the command of Gen. Bernard Montgomery.
When the Battle of the Bulge broke out on Dec. 16, 1944, they were sent to Belgium to fight in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record.
“We slept on the ground on the snow ... I found leaves — everything that I could find to put on the bottom to keep me warm ... We didn't have time to dig foxholes. We just got under a tree.”
The fighting was brutal, and while his reconnaissance group remained behind the lines when they weren't searching for enemy positions, they were never very far from the action.
“You're always scared during the war. Some people had it rougher than I did.”
Balocco saw a lot of dead soldiers being transported back from the front lines.
“Truckloads. They were stacked like cords of wood. All young boys. It was horrible.”
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via email at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
