Armando "Chick" Galella - U.S. Army 1940-45

http://usawarriorstories.org Armando "Chick" Galella served with the 53rd Signal Corps at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attached on December 7th, 1941. Chick went on to earn the rank of Battalion Sgt. Major and served 5 years in the Pacific during WWII. Chick was awarded the Bronze Star for serving at the Battle of Okinawa.

Armando "Chick" Galella - U.S. Army 1940-45

World War II vet­eran, Pearl Har­bor sur­vivor and life­time North Tar­ry­town/​Sleepy Hol­low res­i­dent Ar­mando “Chick” Galella died yes­ter­day, Sept. 29, 2021, at Phelps Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal due to com­pli­ca­tions of COVID-19. He was 100.

Galella was born in 1921. He en­listed in the army and was as­signed to the 443rd Sig­nal Corps at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. He was 20 years old when the Japan­ese bombed Pearl Har­bor. Chick went on to earn the rank of Battalion Sgt. Major and served 5 years in the Pacific during WWII. Chick was awarded the Bronze Star for serving at the Battle of Okinawa.

Shortly af­ter the war, he mar­ried Leda DiFe­lice, who pre­ceded him in death in 2015 af­ter 68 years of mar­riage. Sur­viv­ing Galella are two sons, grand­chil­dren and great-grand­chil­dren. Galella served as North Tar­ry­town vil­lage trustee, deputy mayor and held var­i­ous lead­er­ship roles in the now Sleepy Hol­low Vol­un­teer Fire De­part­ment. His mem­bership in the Pocan­tico Hook & Lad­der Com­pany dates back to 1948.

Galella con­tin­u­ously gave back to his com­mu­nity. At his 100th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion, he broke ground for a statue hon­or­ing Gold Star Moth­ers at Sleepy Hol­low’s Ho­ran’s Land­ing Park. He raised the money for the statue to­gether with his son with the sup­port of the his­tor­i­cal so­ci­ety. (The park it­self is named af­ter his friend, fel­low res­i­dent John J. Ho­ran, who did­n’t make it home from the war.)

Copy of DVD interview of Pearl Harbor survivor Armando "Chick" Galella

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