Edward J. Bernat

World War II veteran Ed Bernat, of Erie, who joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and jumped into Nazi-occupied France on D-Day as part of an elite group of paratroopers, died Thursday. He was 93.

Bernat was the last living member from the Erie area who belonged to “Easy Company” of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Infantry Division, during the war.

The company was immortalized by historian Stephen Ambrose in his 1992 book, “Band of Brothers,” which inspired the celebrated HBO miniseries of the same name.

The other Erie men from the group, Edward Joint and Joe Lesniewski, both died in May 2012. Joint was 89, and Lesniewski was 91.

Bernat died at the Erie Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he was a resident for the past six years, his oldest daughter, Kathleen Wassink, said.

She said her father contracted pneumonia in February and never fully recovered, but that he was otherwise sociable and mentally sharp in his later years.

“He really loved his life,” Wassink, 67, said.

Bernat grew up in Erie, but spent most of his adult life in Harborcreek Township, where he raised four children with his wife, Rose, who died in 2009 at the age of 82.

Wassink said her father was an avid outdoorsman with a quirky sense of humor.

“My dad was a character, an absolute character,” she said. “From the time I was a little girl, he talked about World War II constantly. You know how kids are. We would just kind of look at each other with raised eyebrows like, ‘Yeah, right.’”

That perception of her father changed when “Band of Brothers” was first published.

“Then the book came out and we were like, ‘Holy mackerel. It’s all true,’” Wassink said.

The book and the subsequent HBO miniseries allowed Wassink and her siblings -- a sister, Edith Bunting, and two brothers, Stephen and Anthony Bernat -- to see the invasion of Normandy through their father’s eyes.

Ed Bernat recalled his war service in interviews with the Erie Times-News over the years.

“The Germans were firing mortars,” he told the Erie Times-News in 2000. “They were going off all around us. One exploded about 5 feet away. Eddie (Joint) fell right over me. I thought, ‘Oh, boy, he’s gone.’ But he apparently just had the breath knocked out. He jumped up and said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’”

Ed Bernat first met Joint in jump school.

“As it turned out, we were together through everything until I got sent home from Europe,” Ed Bernat said in the 2000 interview.

On Sept. 17, 1944, Ed Bernat parachuted into Holland, where he was severely wounded. He was hospitalized for six months and honorably discharged from the Army.

He received numerous awards for his service.

Edward John Bernat was born Jan. 17, 1923, in Buffalo, New York. He was the middle of five children born to Alexander and Mary Wrona Bernat, who were born in Russia and Poland, respectively.

In 1926, the family moved to Erie, where Bernat attended Academy High School and excelled at wrestling.

One of his close friends, Senior Erie County Judge Michael Dunlavey, who often visited Bernat at the VA, described him as a special person.

“He was one of America’s heroes,” Dunlavey said. “He shouldn’t be forgotten.”

NICO SALVATORI can be reached at 870-1714 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNsalvatori. By Nico Salvatori

Posted Jun 4, 2016 at 12:20 AM Updated Jun 6, 2016 at 5:37 AM

http://www.goerie.com/lifestyle/20160604/last-band-of-brothers-wwii...

• Reference: U.S. Public Records Index - SmartCopy: Feb 13 2018, 21:59:05 UTC