TSGT. RAFFAELE R. (RALPH) REALE, WWII: A hero's life ended on East Sunnyside Lane

Then-Staff Sergeant Ralph R. Reale (right) of Irvington is pictured in January 1945.with fellow mechanics of the Fifteenth Air Force service command squadron in Italy as they install parts on a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber engine. The engine would replace one damaged in combat over Vienna, Austria, at the time part of Nazi Germany's self-declared Third Reich. The damaged bomber had barely made it back to its base in Italy on its damaged engine. (Photo reproduced from the Jan. 9, 1945 edition of The Herald-Statesman newspaper, Yonkers, N.Y.)

U.S. Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Raffaele Rocco (Ralph) Reale, 29, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound near his family’s home at 118 East Sunnyside Lane, on Friday, Aug. 17, 1945, two days after World War II ended with the surrender of the Empire of Japan.

He was home on a furlough from the European theatre which had witnessed the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 7, 1945. He had also been in North Africa during his overseas deployment. He did not leave a suicide note, but was known to have been suffering from an vague stomach ailment and a nervous breakdown, perhaps more commonly known then as battle fatigue, today as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

It was learned later that he had been undergoing treatment for depression related to his illnesses for several months before his death.

A six-minute video introduction to Operation Torch, the 1942 Allied

offensive against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in North Africa,

that was launched on Nov. 8, 1942.

He was survived by two brothers in combat theatres at the time of his death. Pfc. Natale Reale, born on Christmas Day, 1918 – Natale means Christmas in Italian – remained deployed in the Mariana Islands. Corporal Americo P. (Merico) Reale, born on June 19, 1924 was stationed in post-war France.

In civilian life, Ralph was employed as a metal worker at the Burnham Boiler Co., a subsidiary of Lord & Burnham Co., at Main and South Astor streets, after graduating from high school, c. 1934. Born in Manown, Pa., on June 1. 1916, he moved to Irvington with his family sometime between 1925 and 1930. 

He enlisted in the Army on Feb. 12, 1942, three months and five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was reported at Camp Upton at Yaphank on Long Island, site of today's Brookhaven National Laboratory, but at the time an internment camp for German, Italian and Japanese citizens who found themselves in New York at the time war broke out.

By December of 1942 he was training at Columbia Army Air Base in Walterboro, S.C. We also know he left New York on April 14, 1943 as a passenger aboard the Navy troop transport ship LST 326, apparently bound for eventual duty in North Africa. It would have come on the heels of the Operation Torch invasion of Vichy French-held Algeria and Tunisia in the summer of 1943.He as also was involved in in the liberation of Sicily later in 1943 after writing home on Dec. 27, 1943 about having visited the Sicilian towns and cities of Sciacca, Trapani, Palermo and Castlevetrano. He was involved in the 1943-1944 liberation of mainland Italy. He wrote home on Dec. 14, 1944 about having earlier in 1944 visited Rome, which was liberated on June 4, 1944, and having met some native Italian relations in Italy as well.

The Irvington Veterans Memorial Plaza on Main Street at Aqueduct Lane features a monument (center, left of flagpole) that includes the names of all Irvington residents who served in the military during World War I (1917-18), World War II (1941-45) and the Korean Conflict (1950-53). It was dedicated on Nov. 9, 1963. The separate, smaller memorial (right of flagpole) honors those who served in Vietnam. (Photo courtesy Village of Irvington)

Sgt. Reale spoke sparingly about his wartime efforts, parsing the information because of wartime security censorship. Published in Aug. 19, 1943 edition of the Irvington Gazette was this letter, excerpted to highlight his experiences:

"Somewhere in North Africa, Aug. 3, 1943

“… First of all I want you to know that I had the opportunity to visit many of the towns and cities where some of the major battles have taken place here in Africa.

“ There isn’t very much left to the homes or any other buildings but just a mass of ruins, due to the heavy bombings. Some of the places are Gafsa [oasis city in central Tunisia], Kasserine [west-central Tunisian city near eponymous pass in neighboring Atlas Mountains], Sousse [in east-central Tunisia with port on Gulf of Hammamet off Mediterranean Sea] and Oran [port city in northwest Algeria].

“Here in Africa I have met my cousin Patsy and also Louis Di Falco. I was speechless when the two of them came to see me while I was having a nap. Lately, I haven’t been able to get anything to drink, such as beer or wine, but we sure can get plenty of melons and prickly pears. The soil is very fertile and it seems to me that there is almost every kind of plant imaginable in Africa. I never saw so many different kinds of animals until I got here.

“We are very fortunate, I must say, to take in a movie almost every night. …

“... Lots of luck and best wishes, Ralph.”

Patsy referred to Ralph Reale's cousin Pasquale Reale Jr. who grew up a couple doors away from Ralph, also on East Sunnyside Lane, and Di Falco was an unrelated East Irvington neighbor and friend. Both were in the service simultaneously with Ralph Reale.

Also surviving Ralph's death was Reale’s father Vincenzo -- who went by the name James -- and mother Marianna -- Maria -- (Mastrianni) Reale) James and Maria were both born in Italy, James in the ancient central Italian town of Arpino, James in 1889, Maria in 1894 and they emigrated to the U.S. in 1914 and 1915, respectively, marrying in May 1915. James first worked as a coal miner in Manown, Pa., and only later worked as a gardener on the great estates of Irvington and/or Tarrytown, many of which still existed in the 1930s, including many adjacent to Sunnyside Lane. He definitely worked on the Mary Duke Biddle estate Linden Court on the Tarrytown side of East Sunnyside Lane in 1942. Linden Court is better known today as the Tarrytown House Estate & Conference Center. Maria was working as a maid in Monangahela, Pa., when the couple married.

James alerted police after noticing his son’s .38 caliber service weapon missing from his son’s room. Police found Sgt. Reale’s lifeless body about two hours later, sometime after 9 p.m. in a clump of bushes not far from the family’s home. Two rounds had been fired from the gun, which was found under Sgt. Reale’s body. One of the rounds had pierced his heart.

The fallen soldier was honored by members of Irvington Post 2911 Veterans of Foreign Wars, village leaders, friends and family and an Army honor detail from Governor’s Island in a requiem Mass at his home parish, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Irvington. Interment followed at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery with the Army honor guard firing a three-volley salute and the VFW bugler sounding Taps.

A U.S. Army bugler plays 'Taps' at Arlington National Cemetery.
The history behind the iconic funeral dirge.

Links to similar personal stories about Irvington heroes who gave their lives for their country*

WORLD WAR II

◼ Pfc. Cuthbert Powell Sinkking: Class of '42 gave 3 of its own to the ages

◼ Sgt. Arnold J. Meszaros: Among first to land on Utah Beach

◼ 2LT. Robert R. Chalot, Jr.: Son of French WWI pilot dies in dad's homeland

◼ Pfc. John Joseph (Joe) Gilchrist: Died after capture of Saint-Lo

◼ Lt. (j.g.) George Eddison Haines: Lost at sea, awarded Silver Star

◼ Pfc. Joseph Thomas Costello: Teen lost life in Battle of Mindanao

◼ MSgt. James Peter Kelley: Survived WW II and Korea; died in fall

◼ S1 Archibald Ronald: Lost on next-to-last Navy ship sunk by U-boat

◼ TSgt. Raffaele R. (Ralph) Reale: A hero's life ended on East Sunnyside Lane

◼ Sgt. Robert F. Morrison: Took fight to the enemy, fell in Alsace

◼ Lt. Col. George W. Beavers Jr.: Re-upped as private; died on war's eve

◼ F2 Claude L. Bronnes: Went down with the Atlanta at Guadalcanal

◼ MMLC William James Downey: Died aboard ship off West Coast

◼ Pvt. Alick Main Ian: Died taking Aachen, first German city to fall in WWII

◼ Pfc. George Mills Hill Jr.: Survived Okinawa, only to fall in South Korea

◼ Pvt. Peter R. Robinson: Lost to shadows of time over Pacific, answers never found

◼  Pfc. Matthew A. Smith: Felled by friendly fire in training accident

WORLD WAR I

◼ Profiles of Philip McGovern, Louis Kindervatter, George Hazlett, Frank Farrell and John Kelly Jr. who gave their lives in the Great War

* World War II deaths include soldiers who enlisted during the World War II era and died while still in uniform, either killed in combat, or died of accidental or other causes. Two of the World War II fallen served in both World War II and the Korean Conflict and are listed under World War II. One of those died in an accidental fall after surviving both wars, the other was killed in action in Korea after surviving World War II.World War I deaths also include battlefield deaths and accidental or illness-related deaths by service members still in uniform at the time of their passing.