«UKRAINIAN AMERICANS HAVE SERVED THE NATION WELL AND HONORABLY»
SPEECH TO THE UAV 64TH NATIONAL UAV CONVENTION
on October 1, 2011 by UAV National Commander, Br Gen Leonid Kondratiuk
Tonight I will be speaking about Ukrainian Americans and their contributions to the defense of this nation. My fellow veterans have heard this speech several times so they can think about Florida or football.
It is great to be here in the Philadelphia area. Philadelphia is where the Declaration of Independence was written, our independence was declared here on July 4, 1776, it was the seat of government during the Revolution and not far from here is Valley Forge where during the brutal winter of 1777-1778 the Continental Army starved and froze and yet it managed to train and was transformed from a ragtag amateur army to a professional fighting force.
To us in the UAV Philadelphia is our birthplace. After WWI Ukrainian American veterans realized that they had a common bond of military service and that it was time to band together to form their own organization.
There were several organizers; one of the primary ones was Mihailo Darmopray. They organized the League of Ukrainian American Veterans around 1922.
It was not a national organization but functioned in some manner until 1947. After WWII with the great numbers of Ukrainian American veterans there was a drive to establish a national organization. There was a call to meet in Philadelphia in late May 1948 to organize. There were 60 delegates from several dozen cities mostly in NE US.
The name selected was the UAV; a constitution and by-laws were adopted, the emblem of the former Veterans League: the trizub and Statue of Liberty was adopted as the UAV emblem which we continue to proudly wear today.
This is our 64th national convention; how did we get here today? What are the contributions of Ukrainian Americans to the US Armed Forces?
There were a handful of Ukrainians who served in the Civil War. However, large numbers of Ukrainians did not start coming to the United States until the 1890s.
Several dozen young men who had been born in Ukraine enlisted in the Army during the Spanish American War in 1898. Most were from Pennsylvania in the coal-mining area. These young men were caught up in the patriotic rush to enlist even though they spoke English with a heavy accent and had been in this country for a few years they wanted to serve America as they called their newly adopted country.
This was the first real service of Ukrainian Americans to our nation’s defense.
By 1917 thousands of Ukrainians had immigrated to the United States. As the country entered WWI our young Ukrainian men began enlisting. One of my assignments in TAGO Massachusetts is the preservation of veterans’ records. I see hundreds of Ukrainians from Massachusetts who served in the First World War. No one knows how many Ukrainians served; may be around as low as 30,000 but perhaps as many as 50,000.
All of them were born in Ukraine; virtually all served as enlisted men.
At least 24 were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross; the nation’s second highest award for valor. Many of these awards were posthumous awards; the medals given to their families.
The military service of Ukrainian Americans in WWI is a great story which is largely forgotten in our community. These young men had left Ukraine with their families for a better life in America. At the same time here and in Ukraine there was the consciousness of the Ukrainian nationality. This first immigration willingly served in the Army, Navy and Marines and fought for their adopted country.
These veterans returned home, raised families, built churches and established Ukrainian organizations.
During the 1920s and 1930s a small number of Ukrainian Americans enlisted in the Army, Navy and National Guard. There were National Guard units in Chicago and Detroit with dozens of Ukrainians.
The first Ukrainian graduate of West Point Theodore Kalakuka graduated in 1927 making him the first Ukrainian to serve as an officer in the Regular Army. I think that he was destined to be the first general. During the Philippine Campaign Dec 1941-Apr 1942 he was LTC responsible for logistics. However, he fought in combat and was awarded two Silver Stars and the Distinguished service medal unfortunately he died in a Japanese POW camp in 1942.
Stephen Mellnik was the second Ukrainian graduate of West Point, in 1932.
He too served in the Philippines at the beginning of WWII, survived the Bataan death march, escaped from a POW camp and led a guerrilla force against the Japanese. He was ordered by General MacArthur to leave the Philippines and served on his staff as an advisor for guerrilla matters. Awarded DSC for bravery. Promoted to Br Gen in 1956; the first Ukrainian American promoted to general.
During WWII I believe as many as 200,000 Ukrainian American served in the Armed Forces, perhaps, even more. For the first time women served. There were several hundred officers. We were better educated and qualified for commissions. We served in every branch, in every theater of the war.
Our community was proud of them; prayed for them and welcomed them home after the war.
A couple of years ago I learned about the Huban family of Monessen, Pennsylvania who had eight sons in WWII: 5 in the Army, two in the Navy and one in the Marines.
This year we honor the memory, service and sacrifice of the three Ukrainian American who were awarded the Medal of Honor. PVT Nicholas Minue, PFC John Dutko, and MSG Nicholas Oresko. Minue was a career enlisted soldier; in North Africa in April 1943 his unit Co A, 6th Armored Inf Regt, 1st Armored Div came under heavy machinegun fire. Minue was in the lead squad which was pinned down, Minue fixed his bayonet shot and stabbed the enemy crew and then chased the rest of the Germans from their positions until he was fatally wounded.
PFC John Dutko, Co I, 30th Inf Regt, 3d Inf Div was engaged in the Anzio breakout in Italy in May 1944. His unit came under machinegun and artillery fire. He attacked and destroyed three machinegun positions and an artillery gun and continued to attack, wounded, he killed another machinegun position and fell dead on top of them.
Master St Nicholas Oresko was a platoon leader in Co C, 302d Inf Regt, 94th Inf Div engaged in the Rhineland Campaign in Germany in January 1945. His unit came under machine gun fire; he decided to attack two enemy positions, destroyed them and continued to attack until his wounds stopped him. He survived his wounds and lives in Cresskill, NJ today.
I tell every audience about SGT Michael Strank, US Marine Corps. He was born in what is today the Slovak Republic in a Ukrainian village in 1919. And came over in the second immigration which lasted only until 1926 when Congress stopped immigration from Italy and Eastern Europe.
Strank joined the Marines in 1939 and served in the elite 3d Marine Raider Bn which saw service in 1943 in the S Pacific. He came home and was reassigned as a squad leader in Co E, 28th Marines, 5th Marine Div.
The 5th landed on Iwo Jima on 19 Feb 1945 in one of the toughest battles of the war. SGT Strank and his squad got the mission to erect a large US flag over Mt Suribachi. The Marines made their way up the steep hill carrying a 100 pound metal pipe as the flagpole. Strank carried the flag. As they struggled up the hill Joe Rosentha a civilian photographer noticed them. As the Marines and one Navy corpsman raised the flag Joe took the picture. Look at the photo and the Marine on the left is SGT Mike Strank, Ukrainian American.
SGT Strank was killed in action several days later and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
SGT Strank was one of hundreds of Ukrainian Americans who died in the war. While assigned to the Department of Defense 50th anniversary of World War II committee I had the chance to visit military cemeteries in the Pacific and Europe. I saw Ukrainian names at the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor such as Seaman Anthony Bilij of Philadelphia, the Manila cemetery and the cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France and other cemeteries.
During the Korean War several thousand Ukrainian Americans served second and third generation. A large number of young Ukrainian men who were displaced persons found themselves drafted into the US Army after arriving in the US 1949 and 1950 and 1951.
If you visit the Vietnam Wall in Washington the number of names is striking. Everyone of them had a story. You will see the names of America including Ukrainian names. Our community stepped up during an unpopular war and did their duty.
If you read the book or saw the movie “We were soldiers,’’ then you know that one of the bravest of the brave commanders Battle of the Ia Drang in Nov 1965 in Vietnam was CPT Myron Diduryk who came to America as a boy and always wanted to be a soldier.
We have produced our share of generals and admirals. The highest ranking was General Sam Jaskilka who was Asst Commandant of the Marine Corps after Vietnam.
Everyone in the Pentagon knew Maj Gen Nicholas Krawciw who after a successful Army career then became the official Department of Defense representative to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. General Krawciw was one of the dozens of Ukrainian American military personnel who worked with Ukraine in helping them establish their armed forces.
We have at least two Ukrainian American Army generals now serving.
The veterans here tonight know it was not always easy to be Ukrainian American in the service. We were always asked our ethnic background or were mistakenly called Poles or Russians. No we would reply I am Ukrainian.
We in the UAV are most proud of our community’s young men and women who serve today and have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They no longer have to explain where Ukraine is or who are Ukrainians.
They are writing a new chapter in the history of Ukrainian Americans in the US military. We are proud of them.
Ukrainian Americans have served the nation well and honorably. We should be proud of our history. We continue to send our sons and daughters into harms way to defend our way of life and this great country.
We have doing this for 150 years. Ukrainian Americans will always do their duty.
God bless America and our servicemen and servicewomen.
