John Cingerre with a certificate given to him by the U.S. Army that commemorates his efforts on D-Day.John Cingerre isn’t afraid of challenges, from storming the beaches of Normandy in World War II, to beating esophageal cancer.
“I’m not afraid of dying, but I don’t want to be there when it happens,” quipped Cingerre, 86, a Secaucus resident and Union City native.
For his heroics on D-Day, June 6, 1944, exactly 67 years ago, Cingerre, then a teenaged soldier with the Army’s 29th Infantry Division, earned a Bronze Star.
As he recalls, his mission as a scout that day was perilous, but straightforward: swim to Omaha Beach, make it to the road about 100 yards past the beach, wait for his squad.
According to the intelligence reports he received, the German soldiers had set up 20 miles inland.
When he reached the beach, he knew Intel had screwed up.
The Germans had built a wall along the beach and Nazi soldiers were running at him and other members of his squad.
One of his immediate officers found a crack in the wall and began using explosives to make a hole large enough for the squad to break through, saving the lives of many in Cingerre’s division.
“We all said ‘Hallelujah’ together!,” he said.
But the bodies of dead American soldiers began to pile up.
“There was a lot of screaming that day. I began looking for guys I knew,” said Cingerre, choked up by the memories.
A year before that fateful day, Cingerre, right out of Emerson High School in Union City, was drafted into the Army.
In January 1946, he returned to the city to marry his high school sweetheart, Dorothy.
“His personality changed a little bit when he got back some mood swings but after a while he came around,” Dorothy Cingerre said. In 1985, John Cingerre was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and was told he had six months to live.
“They told me that 26 years ago,” the Secaucus resident said last week. “I think God is smiling down at me for surviving that horrible day.”