When New Hyde Park World War II veteran Benny Messina hit the beach under fire in the U.S. invasion of Mindanao in the Philippines in 1945, he thought it would be the last beach he’d ever see.
“We went on the beach and we had to dig a foxhole right away,”Messina said. “We had the navy shooting over our heads at the enemy. I never thought I’d survive. You don’t forget those days. But you don’t brag about them either.”
The navy ships were trying to knock out Japanese artillery firing on the beach from mountains beyond. Messina followed strict orders to remain in his foxhole all night, from the time of the late afternoon landing.
“Anything you saw outside a foxhole, you shot,” said Messina, who had lived with his wife Emily in New Hyde Park before joining the army.
The landing ship tank that took the 25-year-old Messina and other members of the U.S. Army 882nd aviation engineers battalion nearly didn’t make it to Mindanao. The ship’s engine malfunctioned, leaving the large landing craft to float helplessly in the darkness after departing Leyte Gulf, the site of the first American assault in the Philippines.
“We were like clay pigeons sitting there,” the 96-year-old Messina said, recalling that he smoked a lot of cigarettes during that long night.
The landing ship tank engine was repaired and it caught up with the invasion convoy.
The mission for Messina’s unit was to restore the airstrip near the landing beach on Mindanao, another Philippine island, filling in craters from the naval bombardment, the American B-24 bombers and the Japanese artillery.
Japanese artillery hurled shells at the landing ship tank as landed on the beach and the Army engineers were still under fire from some of those same guns the next day as they worked in exposed positions to make the airstrip functional.
“It was a terrible feeling,” he said. “But we had the airstrip ready for the Corsairs.”
The Chance Vought F4U Corsairs, among the most effective fighter-bombers of World War II, eventually knocked out the Japanese artillery.
But Japanese Zeros continued to attack the airstrip and Messina remembers diving headlong into the sand one day as a Zero buzzed the strip and started a strafing run from behind him.
“We had fellas who did get hit. It was a terrible thing to see them wounded,” he said.
The prospect of death in combat wasn’t new to Messina.
During his time in the Pacific, he often thought of his younger brother, Vincent, who died in the north African desert before Messina ever reached the Philippines.
“It was a sad thing that he passed away. It’s a hell of a feeling to lose a loved one,” he said.
Messina was in basic training for glider duty in North Carolina just after being drafted in 1943 when he learned from his parents that his brother was reported missing in action. He was preparing for his part in the Philippines invasion in 1944 when he received the news that his brother was dead.
By that time, he had been transferred from the original aviation engineers unit he had joined. The high casualty rates in glider landings during the D-Day invasion in June 1944 dissuaded the Army from using gliders in the Pacific, he said. So he was retrained to drive a five-ton dump truck and operate a bulldozer for the anticipated restoration of vital airstrips in the Philippines.
From the Philippines, Messina and his comrades loaded their earth-moving equipment back into their land ship tank for what proved to be a dicey voyage to prepare for the invasion of Okinawa.
“Getting there was terrible because the ship under heavy seas couldn’t take it,” he said, recalling the engineers staying up all night tying equipment down.
The sea off Okinawa was rough the day of the invasion as well, and Messina also remembers shifting his position in the landing ship tank as Japanese artillery shells struck the water on either side of the ship – and other landing craft.
“You could see the shells coming in around us,” he said. “The worst thing, they were hitting our ships.”
As on Mindanao, he and the other men immediately dug foxholes on the beach. They spent the night listening to a naval bombardment every half hour aimed at neutralizing Japanese artillery in the mountains and depriving the Japanese of sleep. As on Mindanao, the engineers repaired the nearby airstrip the next morning under fire from Japanese artillery.
“We destroyed the airstrips so we can land. Then we’d repair them. That’s the way war is,” he said.
On Okinawa, Messina witnessed the terror of Japanese kamikaze attacks on American ships for the first time. And he remembers hearing the sultry, sinister voice of Japanese radio propagandist Tokyo Rose.
“It was scary, her telling us they knew where we were,” he said.
Messina said he prayed often and recalls being the lone GI who showed up for mass one day.
“You always prayed. You always feel there’s a God above you watching over me,” he said.
Messina said he doesn’t remember how he heard the news about the atomic bombs and the war’s end, but he remembers the feeling of relief and homesickness.
“I was just glad it was all over. I couldn’t wait to get home,” he said.
But he also remembers the compassion he felt for the Japanese natives on Okinawa.
“War is hell. I felt sorry for these people. I would give them food and they would bring a basket of oranges and tangerines,” Messina said.
It was several months before he could reach Tokyo by ship and get on a troop ship that eventually landed in Los Angeles in early 1946 to a hero’s welcome for the 5,000 men aboard it.
“Just to see that sign, ‘Welcome home, job well done’, I could have knelt down and kissed the ground,” he said.
Messina called his parents from Los Angeles and called his wife, Emily, when he reached Fort Dix in New Jersey. They met in Grand Central Terminal and spent their first night together in a hotel in the city.
“It was such a feeling,” he said, being with his wife for the first time in two years.
The couple returned to the New Hyde Park Road neighborhood where they lived after being married in Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church in 1941. He bought property from his mother-in-law and built the house he still lives in today. He and his wife raised three sons, Ronald, Carl and Louis, the youngest, who died a few years ago.
Messina’s wife died in 1979 and he retired from 25 years selling floor covering a year later.
He had joined G.&E. Linder VFW Post 8031 in New Hyde Park five years after coming home, and has remained active there. He’s also been a member of the Elks Club for 42 years.
“Most of the guys passed away,” he said. “It’s just being around friends and being able to talk about what you went through.”
He gave up his job as color guard commander several years ago.
But he said he’ll likely be at this year’s Memorial Day observance, gathering with his comrades afterwards to talk about things they all understand.
