User:WikiKnowledge7777

Tom Vano was born 1926 to 2015. A Photographer in his own right. Tom Vano is known for taking pictures of some of the most well known figures in the 20th century. Some people he is known for are some of the most influential people known such as Wille Mays near the Golden Gate Bridge. Also known to take a picture of one of the Emperors of Japan too. Another well known figure, is of General Ike Eisenhower. Later in Germany General Eisenhower remembered Tom Vano for the way he captured the original photo of The General and his staff. Tom Vano is known for some of the most beautiful pictures that most have been donated in the state of California! He was also a veteran in WWII. As one of eight survivors of a platoon of 48; a Silver Star awardee from an encounter in the Hurtgen Forest where Allies were surrounded for 21 hard winter days; being wounded three times; a participant in the battle of the bridge at Remagen; successful in the career he loved and the husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather of large and loving family; Tom Vano considers himself to be a lucky man. He When Vano was 17 and attending Metropolitan High School in Manhattan, America had been involved in WWII for two years. “I was taking photography courses and the Navy came to my high school and said if we volunteered, they would put us in as photographers,” said Vano. “I went home and told my dad, but he said to wait a year until I was 18. I could register for the draft then and the war would probably be over.”

His father, John, had fought in WWI; his grandfather in the Spanish-American War. John Vano owned a grocery store and wanted his son safe and in the family business. Tom Vano waited, turned 18, registered for the draft and six months later he was in combat on the front lines in Belgium.

“My dad wasn’t happy about that,” said Vano. In 1944, Vano was a private in the 78th Infantry Division out of Camp Pickens, Va., a new division in the 311 Infantry Regiment. “We were sent to the Siefried Line in December at the border of Belgium and Germany and relieved the Third Division. They had lost a lot of guys. This Siegfried Line had a lot of German pill boxes and foxholes and tunnels connecting them to the main unit. Our job was to capture the pill boxes and clear out the tunnels. It was not easy.”

The heavily fortified German defense line had been the Allied Forces’ objective since Sept. 19, 1944, and it would take until Feb. 10, 1945, before the Battles of the Hurtgen Forest were over. It was the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought.

Silver Star

“We took turns going back to the troop shelter to get warm. I got to the shelter just as the Germans counterattacked and the lieutenant yelled at us to get back in our foxholes,” said Vano. “I started back up this steep grade and found myself in the midst of five Germans in white snow uniforms. We surprised each other. They started shooting at me as I ran for the foxhole.”

Vano made it to his foxhole, bullets whizzing past him, and threw a grenade towards the Germans. “I had never pulled the pin on a grenade in a dark foxhole. It was like striking a match. I thought the thing was going to explode, so I didn’t even wait to count or anything.”

He heard the Germans yelling about the grenade, but no explosion. At last the grenade exploded and then he heard groaning. “I sat there waiting and waiting. I had to look.”

The five Germans were dead. Vano couldn’t believe that the grenade had killed them all. Then he noticed movement off to one side. A German soldier wearing a long trench coat was running with a machine gun toward the troop shelter. The German didn’t see Vano in his foxhole although the two were only about 10 feet apart. “Guys were starting to come out of the trench and he was starting to fire toward them,” said Vano.

He began firing at the soldier in the dark, hoping to hit him. He did. An ammo bearer appeared and Vano wounded him. “He was calling for his mother. He must have been a young guy and I felt so bad.”

A group of German soldiers came down the path with hands raised. With the bodies of their compatriots lying in the snow, they thought they were in the line of fire, said Vano, and they surrendered to him. Vano was still in the foxhole.

“I was so lucky,” he said.

He had just turned 19. For this action, saving his company, he was awarded the Silver Star and put up for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

But the killing took its toll on him. What was then called “battle fatigue” claimed him — severe depression, a feeling of floating. The chaplain helped him through it, but the 130 days of combat, which included the battle at Remagen Bridge, battles in which his friends perished in front of him, liberating German labor camps and being taken prisoner, are still hard for him to talk about, 69 years later.

Nightmares, depression, the feeling that he was living on borrowed time — that something would fall off a building and kill him or that he would be in a car accident followed Vano into peace time. “It was very hard at first. Then, one day, I just let everything go and it got better. Maybe it was because of my wife, Nancy.” After a huge hero’s welcome home, Vano attended the School of Modern Photography in NYC, but the cold winters, which reminded him of the Hurtgen Forest and the treatment as a military hero, made him very uncomfortable and made him want to leave New York.

On a visit to his Uncle Albert in San Francisco, Vano fell in love — first with the city and then with 17 year-old Nancy Helmka. Vano decided to move to San Francisco where he saw potential both for a young photographer and a lover.

He and Nancy have five children in Debbie, Valerie, Lori, Tom and Sandi; eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. They have been married 66 years.After a huge hero’s welcome home, Vano attended the School of Modern Photography in NYC, but the cold winters, which reminded him of the Hurtgen Forest and the treatment as a military hero, made him very uncomfortable and made him want to leave New York.

On a visit to his Uncle Albert in San Francisco, Vano fell in love — first with the city and then with 17 year-old Nancy Helmka. Vano decided to move to San Francisco where he saw potential both for a young photographer and a lover.

He and Nancy have five children in Debbie, Valerie, Lori, Tom and Sandi; eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. They have been married 66 years. Photo Career.Vano became a successful commercial and industrial photographer, working for companies in New York and San Francisco. In San Francisco, he worked for Moulin Studio before opening his own studio. He worked out of the Clift Hotel, taking photos of visiting celebrities staying there or at the St. Francis. When President Eisenhower stayed at the St. Francis, he astonished Vano by remembering him.

He met a lot of celebrities, took stills of the actors in Vertigo, which was filmed in San Francisco, and did promotional photographs that are still in use and that many people have seen without being aware of who the photographer is. He photographed album covers for his friend Bennett and some of his photographs were used in a book Life magazine produced about Bennett.

Eight hundred thousand of Vano’s images are in the California State Archives and one is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

“You’ll never be a success in the grocery business if you don’t stop fooling around with that camera.” That’s a quote from Tom Vano’s father. Vano put it on a poster he made of a photograph of his father in front of his grocery store, the first “real” photograph the 9-year-old Vano took.

About 10 years ago, Vano reconnected with the men from his platoon who had survived with him. “I saw people suffer in the war. It made me appreciate life and people. I realized how lucky we are here in the United States. We talked about why did we survive when so many didn’t. All we came up with is that we each had a bunch of kids and maybe that was it — to propagate life.”Note: This story received much assistance from “Tom Vano,” a book written about Vano’s life by his grandson, Eric Von Esmarch.