While being treated at Percy Jones Army Hospital in his native Michigan, Pfc. Willard Nanegos shared with a local newspaper his experiences serving overseas in the European Theater during World War II with the famed 3rd Infantry Division.
“It seems as if I was killed 10,000 times,” Nanegos was quoted in the article. “I’ve been in that many tight places and thought I’d never live through them.”
Nanegos was not killed in the war, but he was injured twice in combat — once while driving multiple vehicles out of a burning forest to safety. He fought in eight of the 3rd Infantry Division’s nine major campaigns, including the harrowing Battle of Anzio that resulted in 43,000 Allied casualties.
For his heroism on the battlefield, Nanegos received seven Bronze Star medals from the Army, one of which was finally returned to his family Friday during the annual Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Flag Day ceremony.
Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read was on hand to give the medal back to Nanegos’ daughter, Leona White, grandson David Close and granddaughter Alanna Nanegos, who live in Mission and are all enrolled members of the CTUIR.
“Your father’s sacrifices to this country will not be forgotten,” Read said as he handed the Bronze Star over to White.
Nanegos, who died in 1967, was a member of the Odawa Indian Tribe hailing from Charlevoix, Michigan. According to Close, his grandfather came to the Pacific Northwest prior to WWII to work on the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington.
Nanegos joined the
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