Farewell From Europe
Uvalde which many of you know or remember.
June, 1944
After having fought the great attack where the Germans knocked out our machine guns and we had to go and defend them, we spent two or three days waiting there to receive new orders. We were very tired after what the Germans had done to us. They had pushed us back, they really had given us a good beating.
Within two or three days we were ordered to move ahead because the Germans were already retreating toward Rome and it was expected that in a few days Rome would fall in the hands of the Allies. We, of course were the Allies.
May, 1991 - Willie De Leon Sr. with some of the medals he was awarded during World War II

The push was strong. All the divisions were in constant con-tact with each other and theword was that everyone move forward. All were headed to Rome and each one had the intention of being the first to arrive to the center of the city. We marched marched all day and night until the next day to arrive in Rome the following morning.
There were soldiers everywhere. Whatever road or trail I saw was full of American military machinery and vehicles. All the divisions were there— the 36th, the 45th, the 1st, the 88th and many more*I can’t remember any more.
I had been ordered to stay behind so that I could tell our soldiers that stayed back where our division f the 36th) we going to stop when we entered the city. To move ahead a little faster to where my captain was, so that I could let him know that the rest of our men would arrive later, I left my second in command in charge and I climbed onto one of the tanks that was moving along there. I could see all the divisions marching in line. The infantry all afoot, one behind the other. As I rode on that tank I was very dirty, all “sloppy” and bearded from being so tired by then. I kept looking all around , watching how the whole bunch of us looked as we moved on.
In the 88th division there were other soldiers from Uvalde that I didn’t know about. At about three in the afternoon I thought I recognized one of them. I kept looking at at him and after observing him for a while I recognized him and shouted, “ Hey, Lopez!”
He turned around and stared at me. “Look at DeLeon! How are you De Leon? ” I’m Alejos Navejar, and two or three guys ahead, the
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Brownwood, Texas, 1941 - Three friends in Brownwood who trained together before going off to fight in World War II. (L to R) Rafael Gutierrez, Uvalde; Pole Cadena, Pleasanton; Guillermo (Willie) De Leon


one there is Garlitos Fernandez.”
I got off the tank and greeted them and told them, “What do you know where we meet. Who would ever believe that now that we are
entering Rome— I never expected this, how great it is!”
“Yes,” he said. “Look at this. We are taking Rome.”
I had the pleasure of seeing them, talking with them. “I’m up ahead, at a church,” I told them. “ I was told to keep a good eye when I arrived here and to tell the other soldiers where we are going to rest.”
*
He told me,, “We are going to keep on moving ahead. We will pass through Rome tonight We are going to keep on moving. We don’t know how far. Maybe a few kilometers beyond Rome.”
That’s how it was. After two or three days after this I was told that the 88th had been detained by one of those “pill boxes” that the Germans had waiting for our soldiers as they arrived. It was in that battle

that Garlitos Fernandez was killed and that Alejos Navejar was seriously injured. He was left with one hundred percent disability that very afternoon after we had met.
I felt so bad for what had happened to my friends because they were from my hometown and they had been among the first ones to go to war, and now this had happened to them. It was a terrible blow for me because they were from my town. That’s how it happened.
After a week of resting there, it was our turn now to pass the other divisions and for ours to move ahead of them. We followed the road, town by town. That’s how we fought the war, town by town.
We passed several kilometers. Rome had stayed behind us now, about the distance between Uvalde and San Antonio, and of course we were on all sides of the road, destroying everything in sight, of course.
Later I was told that the next assignment was to overtake the town


of Pisa, the town of Pinochio. When I was in school I used to love very much to read about Pinochio. I really enjoyed the long nosed one. I told Manuel Gonzales, “WeTl be going to
Pinochio’s town.”
“Yes,” he answered me. “Tomorrow we will arrive in Pisa.”
We camped about four or five kilometers before the city because our superiors wanted to check out the situation for possible resistance, to see if the Germans would be prepared in that little town.
“We’re going to send a reconnaissance patrol”, said the captain. “to see if there’s any resis-tQnrp ”
I offered to go and then gathered about eight men to go with me because I really wanted to see the town of Pisa. But it wasn’t to be. We were already on the jeep
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