George A. Jonic, 92, World War II Marine honored for service in the D-day invasion
Flanked by his son, a retired Marine colonel, and his grandson, a Navy pilot, George A. Jonic stood in the State House in December 2005 as the consul general of France awarded him a special Normandy badge to honor his service in the D-day invasion.
Memories of those hours on the morning of June 6, 1944, had never faded. Machine guns strafing the sand had already killed his commanding officer as Mr. Jonic and others in his Army engineer battalion advanced up Omaha Beach, lit by the glow of tracer fire.
"They used to remind me of fireflies, just floating in a straight line," he told the Globe at the State House ceremony.
Mr. Jonic, who was awarded a Bronze Star for his valor in the Battle of Normandy, died Wednesday of congestive heart failure in Jordan Hospital in Plymouth. He was 92 and had lived in Sandwich.
Too ill to travel, Mr. Jonic stayed home 11 days before he died and his son went to Boston on his behalf to receive the Legion of Honor, France's highest award.
"His military experience was very, very important to him," said George Jonic Jr. of Chatham, a retired Marine colonel.
Colonel Jonic's son, Navy Lieutenant Gregory Jonic, will play bagpipes tomorrow during Mr. Jonic's burial in Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.
Mr. Jonic's memory, sharp until the end, reached back to a celebration at the end of World War I, when he was a toddler in Chicago.
"He was born in an apartment that was lit by gas," said his daughter Florence of Attleboro. "He was a first-generation Croatian -- his father immigrated in 1909 through Ellis Island. His father would light the Christmas tree with real candles -- imagine that."
Mr. Jonic moved with his family to Pittsburgh, where he graduated in 1937 from the Carnegie Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. The career choice was determined in part by the finances of his family, which could not afford the extra year of college required for the architecture training he had wanted.
"He always loved colors," his daughter said, "so he worked in dyes all his career."
Recruited on the Carnegie campus by American Cyanamid, a chemical manufacturer, Mr. Jonic stayed with the company until he retired -- except for his Army years. The decision to join the military in early 1941 was prompted in part by his romance with Catherine Morrissey.
"He joined the Army before the war because he wanted to marry my mother and the Army paid more than American Cyanamid," their daughter said. "They were married on the 5th of July when my father got his Fourth of July leave a day late. It was a breakfast wedding and there were no pictures -- nobody thought to bring a camera. We call it their alleged wedding."
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"Mr. Jonic was an Army combat engineer who landed on Omaha Beach on D- day. 'My commanding officer and a lot of other people got killed,' he said, wiping away a tear. 'I was lucky.' "
He was 29 that day and a captain in the 112th Engineer Combat Battalion. Mr. Jonic later fought in the Battle of the Bulge and served in Belgium and Germany.
Among his other decorations were the Free French Croix de Guerre and the Belgian Croix de Guerre.
"I think probably the best four days I spent with my father was when I took him to the dedication of the World War II memorial," his son said. "He walked all over and talked to all the other veterans. He had macular degeneration, so I had to read the inscriptions on the memorial."
Dowd, he said, "was following him because I was reading the inscriptions on the wall to him."
Mr. Jonic did not meet his namesake son until he returned home after World War II. By then, the boy was 3 1/2 years old.
"Their reunion was held at a New York hotel," Mr. Jonic's daughter said. "My brother went immediately into my father's arms -- my mother had been showing him pictures. My father brought him a little wooden Jeep, which they still have."
Back at American Cyanamid, Mr. Jonic worked mostly in New Jersey and retired in 1980. He and his wife moved to Sandwich a dozen years ago.
The Jonics collected antiques -- he specialized in English character jugs, which incorporate the faces and features of the famous. Throughout his life he had indulged his artistic side in various pursuits.
"He was kind of a renaissance man," his daughter said. "He was not a big person to sit and watch sports on TV. He was an avid photographer in his early years. He was a dedicated cabinet maker. He was a really good illustrator."
She added, "He told me once that he had always been pretty happy because he always made sure he had something to look forward to. It's quite simple, but very true."
Although already afflicted with macular degeneration, Mr. Jonic went with his son to see "Saving Private Ryan," the 1998 moved that depicted the D-day invasion. With the wide screen providing a grander scope for his failing eyesight, Mr. Jonic was able to study the uniforms and sets used in the film to evaluate their accuracy.
"He walked out of the theater saying, 'They did a pretty good job,' " his son said.
In addition to his wife, son, daughter, and grandson, Mr. Jonic leaves two other daughters, Barbara of Sandwich and Christine of Los Angeles; another son, Robert of Portland, Maine; two other grandsons; a granddaughter; and a great-grandson.
A funeral Mass will be said tomorrow at 11 a.m. in Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church in Sandwich. Burial will follow in Massachusetts National Cemetery. 