Veteran's Day Tribute to My Dad

Dad served in the 8th Air Force on B-17's flying over the hottest spots of WW II in 1943-1944. Stationed in England he flew 36 missions with a rate of 1 out of 3 not returning. He was involved with the Normandy invasion flying 3 missions those first 3 days. He never talked about the war, he loved living life and thinking about the future.

Eventually in 1968 Dad bought a small single engine plane and would fly out of West Air at Westchester Air Port. Once while flying me to college down to Washington D.C. we hit some really heavy turbulence I was afraid but said nothing, sensing this he just said in a joking manner, "Tom it's a lot easier when they are not shooting at you." It was then I thought of him in those slow low flying primitive bombers going through turbulence and ducking flack being sent up to shoot the planes down.

      I never knew my grandfather, he died when I was 8 years old.

My own father spoke of him with the greatest respect and with a beloved fondness. It is said my grandfather tried to keep my dad out of the Army and was furious when dad enlisted in the Air Force.

       My Aunt Kate told me of how my grandfather, an emigrant from the Naples area of Italy, loved to fish, and actually rode the train out to Montauk back around 1919 to 1929. He came to Montauk not to sport fish but to fish for food to bring back to the neighborhood, which then was around 123rd Street and Second Ave, where my dad was born in that home. Eventually Grandpa moved the family to Blondell Ave in the Bronx. My dad had his B-17 fly over his home in the Bronx and actually waved to his family below as the plane headed to fly overseas stopping in Canada and Iceland, before England.

     My grandfather, Elia Clemente, was a large powerful man and had arms like tree trunks. He owned and leased horses in Manhattan, to pull horse driven wagons that still lumbered around the city at that time. With a few friends he would scrape up the money for the train, and come out to Montauk.

     When I hear the train whistle passing through Hither Hills I think of him on that train, a young man barely able to speak English with homemade fishing poles and old reels probably from Italy. I could only imagine the look  he would give seeing the huge Penn reels my dad eventually bought to catch tuna off Montauk 60 years later. 

       My grandfather would talk about this little fishing town out on the edge of Long Island that had true fisherman like back in Italy. At that time the town was still located down by Gardiner’s Bay. Carl Fisher was just about to come out and open up Lake Montauk to the Block Island Sound. Many years later after my brothers and I presented my dad with his first 36’ Pacemaker fishing boat, he promptly brought it out to the Montauk Marine Basin. It was from that marina that my dad took many fishing expeditions eventually with his twin diesel 43’ custom made Egg Harbor fishing yacht named after my mother, “Lady Elizabeth.”

     My father loved to fish with all of his grandchildren, which was around 13 back then, in different shifts. The granddaughters went for blue fish, easily caught not to far from the lighthouse. He took the younger grandsons out for tuna, but as they aged it became shark  fishing. At night in August on that boat, perhaps a hundred times over the years, my dad and the grandchildren would huddle around the TV after a Gosman’s dinner and watch Jaws on the VCR. All the Darenbergs of Montauk Marine Basin were always great to my dad and were very helpful the one time the older Pacemaker had engine trouble, by fixing it in about three days.

     He was in his glory up on the flying bridge usually with my mom next to him trolling into and out of the jetty of Montauk Harbor. He loved to look at the Coast Guard Station, and when coming in with a prize catch we would drive especially close to Gosman’s to show off our catch. Also when we ate at Gosman’s we always sat where we could watch the other boats come in with their catch.

His ultimate glory came one summer when he, my mom and six of the grandsons, along with three of my brothers landed a 343-lb thresher shark. That photo of them all with the huge shark hanging on the weigh-in hook at the Montauk Marine Basin was next to him when he died in bed at home of lung cancer. In fact all those fishing photos were at his bedside.

    But it was my grandfather who first made his way out to the East End and it's amazing to realize that my children, as well as my brothers and sisters children are the forth generation of our family to fish the Montauk waters. All of us have looked at that lighthouse from offshore and enjoyed the beautiful sight it is from sea. Montauk has always been special to the Clemente family and I am honored to have lived here all year round.

   Every Father’s Day there will be many fine fish dinners with fish caught by fathers, sons and daughters. My dad is gone but his soul is with me every Montauk sunrise. In fact while lying on his death bed, surrounded by the whole family, his last words to me were, “Tom, I wish I could see just one last Montauk sunrise coming over the ocean.” He died that next morning just after sunrise. And I did get to see that Montauk sunrise over the ocean every morning for almost 4 years.

      This Veteran's Day I pay tribute to dad Thomas G. Clemente for making it home and living a full life and creating me. His B-17 had a name..I'll Be Home For Christmas…..and he made it home for almost 60 more Christmas's.