A Pleasanton vet remembers D-Day A Pleasanton vet remembers D-Day (June 04, 2004)

by Jeb Bing

F ewer than 7,000 of those living in Pleasanton today were alive when the allies landed on Normandy on June 6, 1944, and just a fraction actually fought in World War II. But Danny Soria, a World War II veteran and past commander of the local VFW, remembers it well. In fact he was part of a lesser-known D-Day in the Pacific the same day. As American soldiers stormed across the beaches into France 60 years ago, Soria and his top-secret amphibious radar unit were landing on Manus in the Admiralty Islands in the country's battle against the Japanese. Word of the landings at Normandy was broadcast to Seaman First Class Soria's unit, but there was little time to celebrate. His team was moving inland to set up four separate radar operations, each with a 100-foot-high scanning tower, to help secure the islands for the Third and Seventh fleets. Although the First Cavalry had routed the enemy off Manus and nearby islands, Japanese soldiers were still being flushed out of tunnels and caves, most of them determined to take their own lives in final assaults on the invading Americans.

Soria, now 77, joined the Navy at age 16 after his father, at his son's persuasion, signed papers stating he was a year older and could serve. Danny Soria was the fourth son to go to war. Harold, then 24, was an Army sergeant major at Fort Ord; Ernest, 22, was an Army Communications Corps corporal marching with his unit across North Africa; Tony, at age 20, was in the Navy, serving in the South Pacific. A younger brother, Frank, who died in 1996, started serving in 1950 in the Army in Korea. Harold, the oldest brother, died in 1966.

Soria recalls that family reunions always brought hours of conversation among the brothers about the battles they fought and the what-ifs - if the Normandy landings had failed or there had been no A-bomb. They all agreed that no matter where they were stationed, D-Day marked the turning point in World War II, both in the march to Berlin as well as boosting morale in the Pacific where Tokyo was much farther away. They had been told that once Hitler was defeated, U.S. and other allied soldiers would be transferred to the Pacific to concentrate on toppling the Japanese Empire.

For Soria, the successful landing at Manus brought a quick end to fighting there and enabled the Navy to turn the island into a major Pacific repair and launching center. His work there completed, Soria volunteered for sea duty, and ended up again with landing parties at Leyte, coming ashore behind Gen. Douglas MacArthur in liberating the Philippines. Soria was there when atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan's surrender and the end of WWII. At last, the Soria brothers could go home and resume their lives - Danny as a pressman for newspapers in Merced, then Walnut Creek and Oakland, a career that lasted 50 years before he retired in Pleasanton.

With 1,100 WWII veterans dying each day, Soria admits to "choking up" over the thinning ranks. You could see it in his eyes last Monday as he joined fellow members of VFW Post 6298 in carrying American flags at the city's Memorial Day observance at Pleasanton Memorial Gardens Cemetery and when buglers played taps for the more than 500 veterans who are buried there. Soria expects the tears will flow again when he and his wife Joyce go to Washington, D.C., to see the new World War II Memorial. He'll also be watching television coverage this Sunday of the D-Day ceremonies from Normandy, remembering especially the June 6, 1944 landing he made that same day on the beach of Manus half a world away.

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