Joseph Allegretti was 19 when a German tank blast hurled him into the air on the European frontline, concussing him and adding a third wound to his combat record. He survived.
Today, at 101, the two-time Purple Heart recipient stands among the vanishingly small cohort of World War II combat infantrymen still alive. Yet when Allegretti looks back across a century from his home in Albany, New York, he credits his post-war recovery not to army field surgeons or military brass, but to Janet Kajano—the woman he married in 1949 and lived beside for nearly 72 years until her death in 2021.
She pulled him back from the brink of psychological ruin.
Born on May 17, 1925, Allegretti weathered a hardscrabble childhood in Albany during the Great Depression. His parents separated when he was 10, leaving him and his mother, Florence, to navigate daily shortages with grit and little margin for error. He graduated from Albany’s Christian Brothers Academy in June 1943 and entered the military draft two months later at age 18.
Following basic training, the Army assigned Allegretti to the 104th Infantry Division—the famed "Timberwolves," who pioneered nocturnal offensive tactics across northwest Europe. The combat was brutal and continuous. In December 1944, Allegretti marched into Inden, Germany, where a sudden German ambush caught him and his lieutenant in a hail of stick grenades. Shrapnel tore into his left thigh, forcing medical corpsmen to airlift him across the English Channel to Birmingham for emergency surgery.
He returned to the line. Two months later, enemy machine-gun fire capsized his division’s rowboats during an assault across the swollen Roer River, plunging Allegretti into freezing rapids where he nearly drowned. Weeks later, in March 1945, the concussion from a German panzer shell finally closed out his frontline tour.
| Military Parameter | Official Record |
|---|---|
| Enlistment / Draft | August 1943 (Honourably Discharged January 1946) |
| Combat Unit | 104th Infantry Division ("Timberwolves") |
| Combat Wounds | Shrapnel (left thigh), near-drowning (Roer River), blast concussion |
| Major Decorations | Two Purple Hearts, Bronze Star, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, French Legion of Honour |
| Civilian Career | Director of Accounting, New York State Thruway Authority (Retired 1986) |
Discharged in January 1946, Allegretti hauled the invisible wreckage of modern warfare back to upstate New York. Like thousands of demobilized infantrymen, he found the transition to civilian silence nearly impossible to articulate to neighbors who had remained safe at home.
"Soldiers who were involved in close combat with the enemy can be reluctant to discuss their actions with anyone other than fellow combat veterans," Allegretti said. "I keep it to myself."
The moral gravity of the rifle in his hands weighed heavily. Tormented by the haunting question of whether his fire had claimed enemy lives, Allegretti sought counsel in the confessional, where a parish priest offered him a lasting measure of peace by reminding him that the campaign against European fascism was a just war.
Then came Janet Kajano. The two met shortly after his return, marrying in 1949 as Allegretti pursued his degree at Siena College under the G.I. Bill.
The war messed my mind up. Janet became my new guiding light.
Joseph Allegretti, 101 — Year — Old Combat Veteran
She gave his days an uncompromising rhythm. In 1957, with financial assistance from his father, Allegretti purchased the single-family Albany home he still occupies today. Together, the couple raised four children—Joe, Lucille, Patti, and Jim—establishing a warm household that counterbalanced the broken home of his youth. The lineage grew over seven decades to encompass five grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, including attorney and cookbook author Danny Freeman, who brought his grandmother Janet’s traditional Italian pasta recipes to millions online.
Apart from domestic stability, Allegretti channeled his disciplined mindset into public service, spending 27 years with the New York State Thruway Authority before stepping down in 1986 as director of accounting. Retirement simply shifted his regimentation elsewhere. For 31 consecutive years, Allegretti reported to the local gym three times a week for two-hour workouts, maintaining a strict Mediterranean diet that Janet introduced into the household during the late 1940s.
Decades of quiet peace replaced the violence of 1944. The couple spent summer months on the Jersey Shore, booked timeshares along the white sands of Aruba, toured Italy, and spent evenings at Albany's Italian American Community Center and the Irish Hall.
When Janet died in 2021 at the age of 96, Allegretti’s daily world emptied out. Yet at 101, he continues to navigate his Albany home on his own terms, keeping the memories of the European battlefields locked behind him, anchored firmly to the life his wife helped him forge from the ashes of war.