Parade has treat in store for vets
Autumnfest Parade to feature Fazzio at helm of Higgins Boat
WOONSOCKET — The 40th annual edition of the Autumfest Parade on Columbus Day, Oct. 8, will have a special highlight for local veterans, a real Higgins Boat landing craft aboard its trailer.
And even better, Woonsocket’s veteran of the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Richard Fazzio, 93, will be back at the helm of the restored craft featuring his old assault ship’s original markings, PA45.
The Higgins Boat, a vessel with a drop ramp at its bow and the steering and driving helm near its stern, is owned by the John F. Kennedy Museum of the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame and has taken Fazzio along at the helm when it appeared twice in the Bristol Fourth of July Parade while being restored.
But with Autumnfest marking a special anniversary as the city’s premiere outdoor festival at World War II Veterans Memorial Park between Social and East School streets, the timing was right to bring the D-Day craft to Fazzio’s hometown.
Richard Picard, a city resident and one of the museum group’s volunteer curators working to restore the Higgins Boat, actually tendered Fazzio his invitation to ride in the local parade.
“I got a call from Richard
Picard and he said they were bring boat up and asked if I wanted to ride it in the parade,” Fazzio said. “I said yes. It will be the third time I ride in it and it’s great.”
Now 74 years after the allied landings at Normandy that began the end of Nazi Germany’s hold on Western Europe, Fazzio said he doesn’t think many people even know what a Higgins Boat is. Not, at least, if they haven’t watched the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan” or the “Longest Day.”
Fazzio had left Woonsocket to serve in the U.S. Navy as a coxswain, the man in charge of a small boat, and had been assigned to the Bayfield class attack transport APA-45, the U.S.S Henrico, for landings on D-Day.
He and his three fellow crew members on Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) boat No. 5, the Higgins Boat, took a load of soldiers off their ship and headed to Omaha Beach in the first wave of the attack.
Fazzio landed the troops but saw immediately that all but one still on the craft didn’t make it far into the assault, with orders to bring only the wounded or the dead back, Fazzio, then 19, waved the young soldier, “no older than me,” off the boat. As he did, Fazzio was struck by a bullet which hit under his right arm pit and exited through the back of his shoulder. Although wounded, Fazzio stayed at the helm as Lawton got the ramp back up and he pulled the boat back and headed off on the return trip to their ship. He eventually gave up the helm due to his wound but all four members of the crew would survive and continue to serve in the war. Although they all returned home, today Fazzio is the sole survivor of the group. He still thinks about D-Day as a “dark, dark day,” but also relives the many good times he and his crew members shared on other days, the ones that they didn’t have to think about dying.
“I loved my boat and I have a lot of memories of it, most of them good,” Fazzio said.
After serving in the invasion of Southern France, Fazzio would eventually go home. His family had lost his older brother, Frank Fazzio, to the fighting on Leyte in the Pacific in December of 1944.
As for what became of his LCVP landing craft, Fazzio could not say today. The USS Henrico went on to fight in the final days of the war in the Pacific while collecting its three battle stars for World War II.
The attack transport was struck by a kamikaze plane in its bridge section as evening came during the Invasion of Okinawa on April 2, 1945 and 45 members of its crew including the captain, William C. France, killed.
The Henrico was repaired and also served during the Korean War participating in the Invasion of Inchon, and later putting in duty during the Vietnam War. The ship was sold off in 1979 and scrapped.
The LCVP, Higgins Boat, Fazzio will be riding aboard in the Autumnfest parade may have had prior service, but Picard, a retired automotive technologies teacher for Chariho High School and its career center who served with the Navy in the mid-1960s, said the records his group have obtained only list it as being repaired and upgraded by the Navy in 1964. It eventually made its way to Narragansett Bay where it was used by the Navy until it was turned over the Department of Environmental Management and kept on Prudence Island.
Picard became involved with the boat when he took on refurbishing its engines and drive train at Chariho with the help of his Navy experience. The Marine Technology program at Chariho then took on the job of refurbishing the boat’s hull and cargo area.
Eventually all the working components of the boat were repaired and today Picard said its engine even starts and runs. The last major project will be replacing the keel board toward the rear of the boat, a job that will be done by a marine repair company. “I will have a little more work to do on the steering control but when that is done the boat could be put in the water and driven,” he said.
Although a historic restoration project of significance given how few Higgins Boats remain in existence, the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame and U.S.S. John F. Kennedy Museum have bigger plans in mind for one day bringing the now retired U.S.S. Kennedy, the last non-nuclear aircraft carrier in the Navy’s fleet, to a berth in Rhode Island.
That effort is still in the works as is the group’s plan for a new hanger to display its already acquired aircraft and military artifacts.
The folks lining Autumnfest’s Parade route will not only see the Rhode Island Hall of Fame’s Higgins Boat but also its trailer F-9F Panther. No the Panther is not a mascot for a Charlotte-based NFL team but the model of Navy jet fighter Baseball Hall of Fame player Ted Williams of the Red Sox flew on Marine combat missions during the Korean War.
Picard not only knows Fazzio from his past rides on the Higgins Boat and help with its refit, but he also knew the late Wally Lawton of Cumberland. “Wally was a diesel mechanic and a good one and he used to work on projects with me,” Picard said.
Fazzio’s help with the Higgins Boat is also invaluable, Picard said. “He can tell us exactly where the gauges were in 1942 and 1943,” he said. “It’s the best information I can get. I could look it up in books but he really gives it that personal touch,” Picard said.
While he will be riding in the Autumnfest Parade, Picard said he also hopes to have Fazzio back aboard for the Bristol Parade when a big celebration of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day is planned.
This year’s Autumnfest Steering Committee Chair Richard Savaria, who is also planning the Autumnfest Parade, said he is looking forward to having Fazzio riding the landing craft.
Richard Picard had approached him about bringing the Higgins Boat up to Woonsocket for the parade and Savaria said he immediately welcomed the addition.
“I think it is a great idea and we are going to have some of the veterans in the parade riding in the boat too,” he said.
The boat and its coxswain will be included in the first division of the 10 division parade and be joined by a number of other military marchers and displays. Savaria, a former Marine, is hoping to have enough veterans participating this year so that a large U.S. flag can be carried along with the paraders in an appropriate manner.
“It is coming together very well and I’m still getting calls from groups and organizations who want to participate,” Savaria said.
Anyone interested in a spot in the parade should go to Autumnfest’s website, autumnfest.org.