Veterans, family members will receive medals, other awards for military service.  Keyser man earned Silver Star for destroying German tank

CUMBERLAND — Twenty-five years ago, Emil DiUbaldo gave a relative permission to show his Silver Star and Purple Heart to classmates at school.

On Monday, the World War II veteran is due to finally get them back in a ceremony at U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett’s office in Cumberland. The ceremony is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. at 1 Frederick St., Suite 2.

“The teacher wanted to see the medals and show them to the kids,” DiUbaldo, 88, said. “One of my grandkids took them to school and showed them the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. One of the kids took the Purple Heart. I actually never tried to get it back.”

Through the efforts of a nephew, John DiUbaldo, he’s getting them back anyway. DiUbaldo will be one of four veterans or family members to receive long-lost medals or certificates on Monday.

DiUbaldo, a Luke native now living in Keyser, W.Va., earned quite a few medals during his time in the European Theater of Operations. Assigned to the 308th Combat Engineer Detachment of the 83rd Infantry Division, he said the Germans were taking out American tanks. He was among three engineers called in to destroy the bridges and prevent the Nazis from being close enough to cause damage.

He ended up going the extra mile and taking out a German tank.

“Three of us engineers, we had TNT, crawled up ... we edged real far so the Germans couldn’t shoot us,” DiUbaldo said. “We blowed up the tank that was knocking our tanks out. I got the Silver Star out of it.”

Kevin Spradlin, Cumberland Times-News - Cumberland,MD,USA