More On PFC James Devine, Courtesy of a Special Guest Blogger

The story of my visit to the grave of PFC James F. DeVine at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France last month struck a chord with many readers, including my niece Kaye Peltier.  Karen (as I know her) did an amazing amount of research on Private DeVine, and I asked if she would be willing to share her findings in a narrative form.  So, take it away, Karen......

Faithful readers of The Grandstander will remember the poignant post from June 6, 2018, in which Bob described Mr. & Mrs. Grandstander’s recent visit to Normandy, France. I was especially taken by the section describing Bob placing a rose on the grave of a young soldier from Pennsylvania. He asked:

Who is James DeVine? Where in Pennsylvania did he live? Did he have a family? Does he have children and grandchildren that have visited this site? Questions about which I shall always wonder.

How could we let these questions stand? Through the miracles of the Internet and crowdsourcing, The Grandstander readership had to wait a mere two hours after the blog was posted to Facebook to see a photo of Private First Class James Francis DeVine Jr.

James Francis DeVine Jr. was born in DuBois, PA, on May 15, 1921. The son of James and Minnie (Nale) DeVine, James Jr. was the eldest of seven children. The family moved from Clearfield County to the Parnassus neighborhood of New Kensington by the time James Jr. was five years old. The family home at 621 Fourth Avenue appears to have been demolished (along with its neighbors) to make way for Citizens General Hospital (now Citizens Ambulatory Care Center).

James was a member of the New Kensington High School Class of 1940. In reviewing the 1937 and 1938 yearbooks, it appears that James was not active in sports or other extracurricular activities, but worked more than 20 hours a week at a market during high school (as noted in the 1940 census). James’ draft card indicates that he was working for Streamline Market at 900 Fifth Avenue in 1942. Looking through the New Kensington 1940 City Directory, it was surprising to find that Streamline was one of 115 retail grocers in New Kensington – a town of only 30,000 people!

James completed his selective service registration on February 16, 1942. It would be interesting to know if James was caught up in the national feelings of patriotism and desire to serve one’s country that developed after the attack on Pearl Harbor just two months earlier, or if he felt trepidation when he presented at the Westmoreland County Draft Board on Fourth Avenue (right on the street where he lived). We may not know his feelings, but we do know the facts: he was a blue-eyed, brown-haired young man, with the exceptional characteristic of being 6’4 ¼” tall at age 20.   

James was called to service in the US Army on August 8, 1942. He served in the 8^th Infantry Regiment, 4^th Infantry Division. Following the movement of the Division from 1942 – 1944, James may have trained at Fort Benning, GA; Camp Gordon, GA; Fort Dix, NJ; and Camp Gordon Johnston, FL before being shipped overseas in January 1944.

James’ youngest sister, Marilyn, was only 4 years old when he left home to serve.

The 4^th Infantry Division arrived in England beginning on January 26, 1944. Soldiers alternated between keeping the equipment ready and doing calisthenics to keep themselves ready. On April 27, 1944, the 4^th Infantry participated in a training expedition called Exercise Tiger, in preparation for what would become the D-Day invasion. The training exercise went horribly awry, and 749 soldiers and sailors were killed by the torpedoes of German submarines who were alerted to the training exercise by excessive radio activity.

Nevertheless, the 4^th Infantry was selected to lead the charge on Utah Beach on D-Day. James survived the fighting on June 6, but was killed in action in Basse-Normandie, France, on June 11, 1944. His obituary in his parents’ local paper stated:

“Killed somewhere in France,” were the words in a telegram delivered to Mr. and Mrs. James F. DeVine, Sr., 621 Fourth Avenue, yesterday, informing them of the death of their son, Private First Class James DeVine, Jr.

He was awarded the Silver Star medal for gallantry in action and the Purple Heart.

Mr. and Mrs. DeVine lost one son, and then saw their second eldest son, Jack, deployed to Europe the following month (July 23, 1944) with the US Army Air Corps. Jack had been called to serve about six months after James, in February 1943. Their third son, Robert, registered in November 1945 and served as well. James Sr. was himself an Army soldier and served in Europe during WWI, and I can imagine that his own experience must have informed his concern and worry while his sons were overseas.

I confess that I was not familiar with compensation to families who lost soldiers in our various US wars. Mr. and Mrs. DeVine filed paperwork in March 1950 to claim a “Beneficiaries Entitlement” benefit of $250 each for the loss of their son. Five hundred dollars (approximately $5,200 in 2018 dollars) doesn’t seem like adequate compensation for the loss of a son, but I suspect there is no amount that would cover the loss.

Returning to the original questions from The Grandstander post on Omaha Beach, we have a photograph and a little information, but very little insight into who PFC James F. DeVine was when he was killed in action five days after D-Day. It is hard to guess what his life might have been like had he returned from Europe. When Bob found the grave of PFC DeVine at the American Cemetery, he had no idea that he was honoring a young man who grew up less than 13 miles from his own childhood home in Squirrel Hill. We know that there are no children or grandchildren of PFC DeVine to visit the grave site in France, but I suspect that his parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews may have felt and continue to feel his absence among the family plots at Greenwood Memorial Park in Lower Burrell. Perhaps there is some small consolation in knowing that visitors to Normandy, along with the readers of The Grandstander who made a virtual visit, join Bob in thanking James DeVine and his family for their sacrifices.

*Note: in searching for James’ 1940 yearbook, I found a blog created by the daughter of one of James’ classmates who also crossed Utah Beach on D-Day. Jack Clark lived blocks away from the DeVine family on Fourth Avenue in New Kensington and was a member of the New Kensington High School Class of 1940. Jack’s daughter Susan collected her father’s stories from WWII and published them on her blog, No Major Goof-Up (http://majorgoofup.blogspot.com).

Kaye Mushrow Peltier

Our Special Guest Blogger

Many, many thanks to Karen for this exceptionally moving piece.  I am grateful, Karen, that you agreed to write this up for me.

I should also say that in recent weeks (and, again, thanks to Karen's research), I have been able to make contact with one of James DeVine's nieces via Facebook.  At this point, I am choosing not to share her name in this space until and unless she allows me to do so.  Funny thing, when she responded to my inquiry, she mentioned that my name "seemed familiar" to her.  Turns out that back in the late 1980's, she was employed by a then-subsidiary of Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania, so it is possible that our paths may have crossed at one time or another.  Amazing how small the world can be.

And again, all thanks go to James DeVine and his comrades for the sacrifices that they made on our behalf all those years ago.