ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KNIGHT RIDDER-TRIBUNE
note: below
FRANK CARAFA BELIEVES there's a reason why he hauled an injured lieutenant whose name he didn't even know off that World War II battlefield - and he plans to cast his vote for that man in November.
Frank Carafa was a working-class kid from New Rochelle, N.Y., and Bob Dole hailed from a Kansas farm town when they faced the horrors of war together on a battlefield in Italy five decades ago.
Last week, with Dole poised to claim the Republican nomination for President, Carafa recalled rescuing the Kansan from enemy fire.
``It was the most memorable day of the war for me, and not because of Dole, but because of what took place,'' said Carafa, now 74 and silver-haired.
``But I do believe that God made me save a man I didn't know, gave me strength to do it because he had a reason for Dole to live.''
Carafa had been in the war since day one, serving in the Pacific Theater with the Fighting 69th. He was shot in the chest on the Japanese-held island of Saipan. When he recovered, the Army gave him his choice of assignment.
He picked the 10th Mountain Division. ``It was a rich man's division. I wanted to learn to ski, and we were not supposed to do any fighting.''
He was sent to northern Italy, a 23-year-old sergeant in the 2nd Platoon, I Company, 85th Infantry Regiment of the 10th.
Dole had volunteered in 1943 for the Army enlisted reserve corps, and in February 1945, he was sent to the 10th to replace a wounded lieutenant.
``You never tried to get too friendly with replacements,'' Carafa said. ``The guys you went over with were like brothers and when you see them get shot, wounded, it really hurts. ... I thought his name was Doyle.''
Carafa had been leading the platoon for more than a year, since it lost its lieutenant, and Lt. Dole did not barge in and take over. ``He told me to keep doing what I'd been doing.''
On April 14, 1945 - three weeks before the war in Europe ended - they were ordered to attack German-held Hill 913 in the Po Valley.
``The company commander called me and Dole to the front, to a wall, and beyond it was an open field with a stone farmhouse on the left, and what I saw was unbelievable, my God,'' Carafa said.
``Thirty or 40 men in the field, land mines exploding ... some were killed instantly, then the machine guns opened up from the farmhouse.''
The commander told Carafa to take a squad to the farmhouse, and Dole would provide cover fire. But Dole changed the plan.
``He was great ... that's why I loved him. He said, he'd do it, and I would cover him,'' Carafa said.
Dole, leading 10 men, got about 50 yards out when machine guns easily found them. Four men died then and there, Carafa said, the wounded were strewn about the field.
``He was calling `Sarge, hey Frank,''' Carafa said. ``I had to do something, or at least try ...
``I brought the first guy back, and I just kept going out, brought couple more back, the only one left was Dole, I crawled out, I was crying, I could hear shots.''
He dragged Dole by his right arm, ``Dole hollered and passed out,'' and then for what seemed like forever, Carafa crawled back, rolling, pushing, dragging Dole's 190-pound body.
``His whole right side from the waist up, it felt like there was nothing there. I told the sergeant to give him a shot of morphine, and then I didn't see him after that.''
Dole went home to Kansas with a Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster, two Purple Hearts, and spent three years in and out of hospitals recovering from his grievous wounds. He lost a kidney, and his right arm is useless.
A Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts and a score of other medals and citations are prominently displayed in Carafa's house, where an American flag whips in the wind, on a dead-end street in New Rochelle.
Carafa married his girl, Josephine, adopted three children, losing one to heart disease as an infant. He got a job with the county, and registered Republican.
In 1986, at an Army ceremony at Fort Drum in upstate New York, Dole introduced Carafa as the man who saved his life. Carafa was shocked, never having realized the prominent politician was his lieutenant.
He and the senator have since stayed in touch.
Carafa works at the county sewage treatment plant as maintenance supervisor and was elected president of his union local three times.
A widower now, he has survived pancreatic cancer and plans to move to Arizona this year to be closer to his three grandchildren.
``There's no question I'll vote Dole for president,'' Carafa said. ``He was wounded, given up for dead, and he did something with his life. I was wounded and survived, and God had a reason for doing that.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Dole colorby CNB