Remembering the past

By DAVE GOSSETT Staff writer
WEIRTON – Their bodies may have been slowed by age and their numbers reduced by time. But the five remaining members of the Weirton Last Man’s Club still have the same spark and spirit that carried them through World War II and the decades that followed. The Last Man’s Club will meet Sunday at 6 p.m. at American Legion Post 10 to salute and remember the 89 members of the club who have died since it was formed in 1956. They will eat dinner, hold a brief formal meeting, conduct a roll call of deceased members, play taps in the memory of their late members and then the remaining five veterans will play some cards and catch up with their personal news. Ultimately, one of these five men, all in their 80s, is expected to sit down and open a bottle of Napoleon brandy and a bottle of cognac to toast the 93 friends who have gone on before him. According to Last Man’s Club Commandant Milton Fabianich, “To see our members pass on is tough on us. When I know a member has died, I call the guys and we go down to the funeral home and talk to the family. They usually know us. We just lost two members this past year. And eventually it it will go down to the last man. Only God knows who that will be and when.” “My responsibility is to keep the bottles safe and to bring them to our annual meeting each year,” Fabianich explained. During the annual meeting, a chair for those who have died is decorated with a poppy bearing the name and date of death for each member. Fabianich said the annual banquet is traditionally held during May to coincide with Memorial Day. During a recent meeting to discuss their club and banquet plans, the five men exhibited a strong sense of loyalty to their friends and shared memories and laughs about their service experience. Fabianich served as a military policeman in the Third Army in which he served as a guard at the War Crimes Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany. “We were initially serving under Gen. George Patton who always insisted on his men wearing clean uniforms no matter what the conditions were. We were responsible for moving armored vehicles around. Later I served under Gen. Telford Taylor at Nuremberg,” Fabianich said. That duty brought Fabianich to the prison where top Nazis were housed during their war crime trials and hanged if convicted. “We had to search the prisoners all the time. But that didn’t stop Air Marshal Hermann Goering from committing suicide before his scheduled hanging. Goering said he would never be hanged and he was right. And that didn’t make Gen. Telford very happy,” said Fabianich. Former Weirton Councilman John Moore serves as the chaplain of the Last Man’s Club. “I served as a combat medic in the 69th Infantry Division in Europe. That included the Battle of the Bulge,” Moore noted. Moore said he really wasn’t scared when he enlisted in the Army shortly after the United States declared war on the Axis powers. “The only time I was scared was during the Battle of the Bulge. We were in a house and surrounded by the Germans. Shots were flying over us and I was afraid of being captured by the Germans. I didn’t want to end up in a prisoner of war or being shot as a prisoner. But I figured if a bullet had my name on it then it was my time,” Moore recalled. “I remember when I reported to Clarksburg and the guy in front of me was named Freshwater. He wanted to go to the Army but they laughed and said with a name like his, they were going to put him in the Navy. I asked for the Navy and they put me in the Army,” said Moore. Michael Horvat graduated from Weir High School in 1940 and was soon in the Army and in South America and suffering from his first case of malaria. “I never really knew why I was in South America but after that I was sent to North Africa which was an eye opener. I was in my early 20s and was sitting at a cafe and watching these French Foreign Legion soldiers take a native around the corner and shoot him for stealing their cigarettes. I couldn’t believe it had happened like that. Members of the Foreign Legion were the worst people I ever encountered. And the British Eighth Army was among the very best,” said Horvat. “When I was called to the service, I was glad to go. I lived on Main Street then and everyone was excited to serve their country. No one refused to go,” related Horvat. Winford Hays of Weirton was also glad enter the military service although it took him a little longer to get there. “I was trying to get into the Army Air Corps. But I was still in high school. My parents supported me. The original requirements called for four years of college, then just two years and then you had to be able to pass an entrance exam. That’s when the Wirt County schools started having classes for the students to study what they needed to pass the entrance test,” Hays said. “I spent two years on active duty. And I am glad I missed most of the fighting. I was assigned to the South Pacific but got there after the first atom bomb was dropped on Japan,” said Hays. Wintersville resident William R. McGregor served in Europe from 1942 until 1945. “I was in the FBI, or the ‘forgotten bastards of Iceland’. I was an anti-aircraft gunner,” explained McGregor. “It took me three days to get into the Army. They sent me to Columbus where I spent three days just waiting to be sent to basic training. After that I was sent to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales before going to the hell hole of Iceland. These days it is a tourist resort but back then it drove people insane. I was a young fellow but there was nothing to do there and nowhere to go,” according to McGregor. “And it never seemed to occur to our superior officers that no one was flying over Iceland. There wasn’t a lot for us to do,” added McGregor. Those are the stories the members of the Last Man’s Club like to repeat to a visitor. Their wit and conversation is still sharp when they convene as a group. And the five men are still very proud of their service to their country and the club that has bound them together in a unique military veteran comradeship. “Last year we received a $100 donation from the Steel Works Credit Union. We can still use a couple of donations but we buy our own dinner and tip the waitresses and tell our stories. And we share or memories and remember those who have gone on before,” said Fabianich. And they wait to see who will be the last man.

(Gossett can be contacted at dgossett@heraldstaronline.com)