Ray Fortunato: On the battlefields of Germany, a bit of good fortune

Editor's note: Together, they won a war that spanned a globe. They were soldiers, sailors, pilots, nurses, doctors, mechanics, clerks, quartermasters and drivers who an swered a call to duty and restored freedom to Europe, Africa, Asia and Pacific islands at great cost. Fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters left their homes for World War II, never to return. Those who did held on to memories for life, moments of triumph, horror, sorrow and even laughter. Many carried those memories to their graves. Now, as their numbers grow smaller daily, some veterans have come forward to share their stories. Starting today, on the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender, the Centre Daily Times will present their stories each Monday for the next three months.

The German soldier couldn't miss. Below him, face down in the dirt, lay a wounded American officer. Ray Fortunato was as good as dead. He heard a rifle being cocked. He closed his eyes and prepared for the end by a river deep in Germany. "I was wondering what the bullets were going to feel like," he said. Shots ripped the ground beside him. Then Fortunato, ears ringing, was alone. For whatever reason, the German had spared his life. "He just turned out to be a nice guy," Fortunato said.

By the spring of 1945, as World War II drew to a climax, mercy had been in short supply for years. But luck shone on Fortunato, an Army lieutenant with the 78th Division, more than once.

It brought him out of the Huertgen Forest alive. Some of the European campaign's worst fighting shredded the dense woods near the German city of Aachen. On Dec. 13, 1944, Fortunato, now 82 and a retired Penn State administrator in State College, ran across an open field with I Company of the 309th Infantry Regiment. Haystacks turned out to be pillboxes. Fortunato fell, hit four times by machine-gun fire in the upper right thigh. "A (medic) came out and bandaged my wounds," he said. "I lay there for a long period of time and then crawled on my hands and knees back to the company aid station."

Three months in hospitals followed. When he returned to his company in Germany, none of his friends remained. But the setting was familiar — days on the line without hot food or mail. Fortunato decided to deliver both. Night swallowed the five jeeps before they reached the company. Down a country road the convoy drove, lights off.

Unsure of their location, Fortunato and his sergeant ducked inside a darkened farmhouse to check their map. They found themselves in the middle of trouble. "When we lit a match, the room was full of sleeping German soldiers," Fortunato said.

In seconds, the pair captured the troops and several more up stairs. Outside, they stumbled upon the sentry dozing at his post. Fortunato had to be just as quick crossing the Rhine River. It happened near Remagen.

Against orders to blow up all bridges across the mighty river -- one of the last obstacles for the Allied armies -- German officers had saved one to use for retreating. American soldiers fought their way across on March 7, 1945, surviving a failed demolition attempt.

Within 24 hours, thousands of soldiers crossed the bridge under fire from artillery and planes. One was Fortunato, who had to go back for replacement soldiers before the bridge collapsed days later. "That was their first time under shelling, and they panicked a little bit," he said. "But they got across." Germany's days were numbered by then, but there still were pockets of resistance.

Fortunato found that out leading an armored task force. Out front scouting routes, he chose a road that clung between a mountain and a river -- and led straight into an ambush. Bullets smashed into his windshield, killing his driver.

Fortunato, wounded in the eye, leapt from the jeep and vaulted over a fence. As far as he could go, shaking under his steel helmet, he crawled into underbrush. "And then, I listened to Germans up on the hill," he said. "I could understand a little bit of German, and they sent a guy down to find me." Anticipating capture, he threw away German medals and a pistol taken from prisoners. He saw boots approaching. "I could have reached out and touched his ankles," Fortunato said.

Why he lived to stagger back to headquarters, he'll never know.

This month, on a division reunion trip to Germany and Belgium, he'll at least have a chance to say thanks. But for the kindness of one man, he plans to tell German townsfolk, he wouldn't stand be fore them during his first trip back.

If he had encountered a different German soldier that day, Fortunato likely wouldn't have gone on to raise two children, fulfill his career at Penn State and spend a lifetime playing the piano. He heard the rifle bolt pulled back. It just wasn't his turn. "I didn't meet anybody in combat who wanted to be a hero," he said. "We were scared to death most of the time."

Chris Rosenblum can be reached at 231-4620.