Zoop Bob Rossi 712th Tank Battalion | World War II Oral History

Bob Rossi, of Jersey City, N.J., joined the 712th Tank Battalion as a replacement.

We were staying in a hayloft in Berle in Belgium on Jan. 10, 1945. It was in the morning, and we left our bedrolls in the hayloft, because this was going to be a quick job – a pocket of resistance, get them out of there. And we figured we’d be right back.

I was standing in the turret waiting to move out. The tanks were idling, and I saw one of the guys from my neighborhood walking by, Johnny Burghardt. He was a captain in the 26th Infantry Division. And I’m calling him, "Johnny! Johnny!"

He didn't hear me with all that noise around us. He walked into the command post. With that, we moved out.

I met Johnny after the war, and I told him how I saw him, and he remembered the town after I described it to him. He was on his way there to the command post, and he recalled Berle was a jumping off spot for the 26th, the 35th and 90th Infantry Divisions. That was a big push, for the Bulge.

Johnny’s youngest brother, Phillip – we used to call him Philly – Philly and I were best friends. Philly and most of his family burned to death in a fire, I think it was Holy Thursday, in March 1937. I was in their house the night before. Everybody was poor, but the Burghardts were superpoor. They had kerosene lamps, and Philly had to go get wood every day down at a yard, there was a yard full of wood because his uncle was a junk dealer.

The night before the fire, we were sitting around the stove and Mrs. Burghardt was telling us about death and Irish superstitions, and so Mrs. Burghardt and her brother John Gorman, Charlie, Philly, Florence, Theresa and Veronica, they all burned to death. They were up on the third floor. And one daughter, Rose Burghardt, was on the second floor, and there was an Italian-American club down the street. Danny DeBrita – he palled around with Johnny and Robby Burghardt, who were not home at the time – was standing in the club and saw the fire, and he ran up the street and through the alley, climbed up the fire escape and he kicked in the window, and just about that time, he felt Rose groping for the window. He grabbed her, took her downstairs and brought her across the street. He tried to get back in but the fire was too great.

Now, this was in 1937. It may have been the year before, there was a big fire at the Hotel Plaza in Jersey City. It was Christmastime. And we were playing two-hand touch in the street. Kids at that time, we used to roll up the news and wrap cord around it, that was our football; we played two-hand touch. Philly and I were playing two-hand touch with some of the kids, and someone yelled out the window, "Hey, the Hotel Plaza’s on fire. I just heard it on the 770 Club!" That was a radio show. So we ran up to the Hotel Plaza, Philly and I and some other kids, and I can remember a woman’s foot hanging out the window, they said she was gonna jump and she got a heart attack and fell back in. Her shoe was dangling off her foot.

And then there were some other people with West Point jackets on, there must have been some cadets staying there, and they were giving their jackets to the old people, and this one fellow from the neighborhood, a redheaded guy, he was helping the firemen bring in the hoses.

What had happened, they had a Christmas tree in the lobby, with a train around it, and the sparks from the train ignited some cotton. And the switchboard operator, her name was Sullivan, she stayed at her post and she burned to death, warning all the guests.

Kate Smith was very big at the time, she had her own radio program, and she honored this Sullivan girl.

So ironically I’m running up to a fire with Philly, and the next year he and his family burned to death. I can remember, we lived a few blocks away, and I heard my mother crying. We jumped up out of bed, "Ma, what’s the matter? What’s the matter?" And this fellow, Pete, he was my brother Charlie’s friend, he said, "The Burghardts all burned to death in a fire."

"No! you’re wrong! No!"

And we ran around there, and sure enough, as we got there – this was in the early hours of the morning – the firemen were just carrying the dog, Zoop, John Gorman’s dog – it was a big German shepherd, that was a nickname. The dog’s name was Flora but they called her Zoop, because she made that noise when she was drinking. And then a couple of days later, one of the guys, Johnny Zaro, was up there scrounging around, and he found Philly’s medal from a track meet, and he gave it to me because he knew I was his best friend. And I held it for all those years; it was a bronze medal in the relay. And many years later, my wife, Marie, was working at the Jersey City medical center with Mary Burghardt – another sister who was married and living elsewhere at the time of the fire. and Marie found out who she was, and she told her who I was. Then I gave her the medal.

- - - -

Stories