Sister: Norwalk WWII Airman Was 'Handsome Devel'

Stamford Advocate - Stamford, CT, USA

Sister: Norwalk WWII airman was 'handsome devil'
By Frank MacEachern
Staff Writer
Posted: 11/20/2008 02:47:13 AM EST

NORWALK - Sixty-four years after the Norwalk native was shot down during a bombing mission over Nazi-occupied Europe, Staff Sgt. Martin Troy will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery this morning.

His sister, Julia Carvutto, 90, the last of Troy's siblings still alive, will be at the funeral along with her son, William Wilcox.

She remembered a brother who scraped together all the money he could find to buy her a Christmas gift when she was 10 years old.

"He gave me a bracelet that took his last penny, and I still have it. That's the kind of man he was," Julia said. "He was 16-17 years old; I don't know how he bought it."

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has ordered state and U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff

Staff Sgt. Martin Troy of Norwalk, who was shot down in 1944 in Hungary, will be buried Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery. His remains were discovered last year. (Contributed photo)today in Troy's honor.
In July 2007, a team from the Defense Department's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command discovered Troy's remains amid wreckage of the B-24H Liberator bomber named "Miss Fortune" in the village of Nemesvita, Hungary.

Relatives were told about the discovery and DNA tests were done. The remains were recently identified as Troy's.

Martin Troy was the fifth oldest of seven children born to John and Myra Troy who lived in a home at 104 Harbor Ave., said Carvutto, the youngest sibling.

She vividly remembered the day when her brother's wife, Grace, was told her husband had been shot down and presumed lost.

"I'll never forget those two soldiers walking up. I can see them like it was yesterday," said Julia, who was at the family's home at the time. Troy and his wife lived next door.

The couple had no children. Grace later remarried twice and died on July 1, 1964, almost 20 years to the day her husband died.

William Wilcox said relatives gathered Wednesday night during a wake at an Arlington, Va., funeral home to remember a man who few of them knew, but who was a link they all shared.

"He was a handsome devil," Carvutto said about Troy, who was more than 6 feet tall and played football as a teenager in Norwalk.

"All the girls would come to me and ask about him," she said with a laugh.

As the years passed, the pain of losing Troy was ever-present for the family, Carvutto said, but they never thought his remains would be recovered. But his friends never forgot, and they spent years asking the government to find his body.

Joseph Jerome "Jerry" Conlon, of Roaring Spring, Pa., was a member of the 460th Bomb Group based in southern Italy, in which Troy also served.

There were four squadrons in a group, each with 16 planes. But they were rarely at full strength, said Conlon, who added they were lucky if they could assemble 30 airplanes.

On June 30, 1944, their mission was to join other bombers and attack a factory in Germany.

On the way to the target, the mission was recalled, but their group commander decided to press ahead, Conlon said. The airplanes encountered thick clouds, and they lost their formation.

When they cleared the clouds, Conlon said he could only see three other Liberators. They formed together for support when they were suddenly attacked by about 50 German Messerschmitt fighters, which tore through the four bombers, shooting all of them down.

Conlon remembers a chaotic fight and his desperate actions to jump out of his bomber before it crashed.

"What can I say? They were shooting at us, we were shooting at them. There were more of them than there were of us," Conlon said.

Seventeen men died that day, with the 41 others spending the rest of the war in German prisoner of war camps, Conlon said.

After the war, the remains of 16 men were found and identified. Only one, Troy, was unaccounted for.

Conlon said Troy's best friend, John Lenburg, who also served on the "Miss Fortune," began writing the U.S. government a little more than 10 years after the war ended to urge them to find his remains.

Another of Troy's friends on the bomber, Mike Brown, also became involved in the campaign to find Tory'sremains and return them.

Conlon knew Troy at the base but wasn't close with him, although their paths crossed on occasion because they had mutual friends.

Conlon, who was also friends with Lenburg and Brown, joined their efforts in urging the government to find Troy's remains. Lenburg and Brown died before Troy's remains were found, he said.

"There were a lot of guys who did a lot of work to get Martin home. But this is Martin Troy's day. He's coming home," Conlon said.

- Staff Writer Frank MacEachern can be reached at 750-5351 or frank.maceachern@scni.com.