So far I have not gotten any results back from my search request from USCIS.gov for Valentine Motyka (1892-1967) file. But then the website did say to give them 90 days to retrieve the file. According to Mary Leszcczak Motyka's affidavit" Statement of Facts for Preparation of Petitions" Valentine Motyka was naturalized on this date, July 31, 1927, 88 years ago today.
Also on this date 74 years ago, July 31, 1941 my father Wilbur Herbert Condit enlisted into the Arm. Many years ago, when he was alive, I had asked him about his time in the Army. This is some of what he told me.
" I spent a year in basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I was then sent to Aberdeen, Maryland. I was trained in ordinance-mechanical. I serviced aircraft guns. From Maryland I was shipped to California where I lived in tent in Burbank until housing in Torrance (Normandie and Torrance Blvd) was built. I would work out at Point Dune assisting the military as they trained for war. I remember going down to Torrance Beach and watching planes with attached parachutes being shot at by ground crews."
Another thing he remembered while in Torrance was how him and few of his buddies would sneak into downtown Torrance to go to the bars. If a car came down Torrance Blvd. they would all duck behind bushes to hide. I guess none of them were ever caught.
At one point dad told me he had a Rainbow badge on the shoulder of his uniform. I looked into this and found the 42nd Infantry Division that wore the Rainbow badge on their shoulder sleeve. After being deactivated after WWI this division was activated again on 14 July 1943 then overseas November 1944 in the campaigns of Rhineland, Central Europe and is still currently headquartered at the Glenmoore Armory in Troy, New York with the New York National Guard(1). On April 29, 1945 this 42nd Rainbow Division liberated a major sub-camp of Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany's Nazi regime.(2) The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps which were mostly work camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. My dad remembers being there in Austria. "People were very skinny. They wore the blue and white stripped uniforms that hung from their thin bodies and were scrounging around for food. There were piles and piles of bodies. As they walked around the liberated camp the prisoners would wave and thank them."
(1) Wilipedia, 42nd Infantry Division (United States)
(2) hppt://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dachau-liberated
After the war Wilbur H Condit met Helen M Motyka back in New Jersey, got married , traveled to Southern California for an aerospace job. Bought their first home in Gardena, California, eventually moving to Torrance, where they lived till their dying day.
