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Another Of the Greatest Generation Passes


Subdeacon Joe

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https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10767679-181/santa-rosa-world-war-ii?ref=recent

 

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Bob Trombetta and "Mrs. T," the Republic P-47 he flew over Germany in 1944 and 1945. (Trombetta family)

 

 

Bob Trombetta married fellow Santa Rosa High School grad Marjorie Woods in 1944, then went off to war and took his bride with him.

Well, the Army Air Corps pilot took “Mrs. T” along as a portrait on the nose of his Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. “Mrs. T” is what he called the plane.

Trombetta, who’d started his life upstairs from his parents’ west side Italian grocery store, suffered not so much as a cut while flying an incredible 91 combat missions against Hitler’s Germany.

At war’s end, Trombetta, then all of 23, held a camera and for the last time admired the heavyweight fighter-bomber and the painting of his wife that steeled his resolve to stay alive.

He recalled in 2012, “I took some Kodachrome pics of Mrs. T all decked out in her battle dress. Parting was such sweet sorrow.

“But the real Mrs. T is my main goal now.”

Bob and Marjie Trombetta reacquainted after more than a year of separation by global war. They set up housekeeping in Santa Rosa and stayed in love until the combat veteran and former liquor distributor died Feb. 23, his sweetheart of 75 years at his bedside.

 

Bob Trombetta was 97.

“I tell you, my mother is all he cared about,” said daughter Robbie Trombetta of Culver City.

“They were each other’s North Star. They had to be together.”

In recent years, Bob Trombetta not only doted over his wife but cared for her as she experienced advancing memory loss.

“He took her for rides,” their daughter said, “even though we were freaked out that he was still driving.”

Bob and Marjie Trombetta didn’t know each other back at Santa Rosa High. He was three years her senior.

As a kid, Bob Trombetta knew every square inch of the Italian section of central Santa Rosa that is now known as the West End and Railroad Square, and is separated from the easterly portion of downtown by Highway 101 and the Santa Rosa Plaza.

“I was born on that corner right there,” he said, in 1994, speaking of the spot where the Redwood Rescue Mission stands, at Wilson and 6th streets. “So I’ve known this place all my life.”

He worked at the grocery store that his parents, Floyd and Eda Trombetta, ran below their family’s apartment.

In 1933, Floyd Trombetta had founded the liquor distributorship that began in 1933 as Acme Distributing. The business started out handling just beer, then expanded to wine and liquor and grew to become Trombetta Distributors and operate locations from San Rafael to Eureka.

As a teenager, Bob Trombetta worked for the business, which at first occupied part of the former railroad depot at Fourth and Wilson streets that has long housed Chevy’s Mexican Restaurant. Trombetta graduated with the Santa Rosa High Class of 1940, then enrolled at Heald Business College.

One weekend he took a date to San Francisco for a Big Band dance. Recalling a family story, Robbie Trombetta said, “He saw my mom and more or less dumped his date.”

Trombetta found the nerve to ask Marjorie Woods, who also lived in Santa Rosa, if she would go out with him. According to the account handed down to their daughter, Woods said she would — if Bob Trombetta would provide her with three references.

He did. So the two of them scheduled a date.

Trombetta showed up late to pick Woods up. She told him in no uncertain terms that it had better be the last he failed to appear on time.

“He was never late for her again,” their daughter said.

With World War II expanding into its third year, Bob Trombetta enlisted in the Army and in time entered flight training.

In the spring of 1944 he was training at a base in Louisiana and preparing to be shipped overseas. He asked Marjie Woods to come to the Harding Field, at Baton Rouge. And to marry him.

She traveled to Louisiana by train. The two Santa Rosans were wed March 31, 1944.

Bob Trombetta, who’d just turned 22, then returned to his flight training. Marjie Trombetta, 19, set to figuring out how she’d get back to Santa Rosa with very little money in her purse.

Said her daughter, “She talked her way onto an Army Air Force cargo plane. She said, ‘I don’t weigh very much!’ and hopped on.”

Her husband shipped off to Europe. Assigned to the 9th Air Force, 366th Fighter Group, Bob Trombetta joined the march toward Germany that began with the D-Day invasion of Europe in June of ’44.

He flew “Mrs. T,” the P-47 adorned with a standing portrait of his bride in Santa Rosa, in 91 attack and bombing missions. The formidable P-47 was the war’s heaviest single-engine fighter.

Trombetta’s daughter said he wanted to reach 100  missions but caught a cold near the end of the war in Europe and had to settle for 91. By emerging unscathed, he and Mrs. T beat some impressive odds.

Trombetta returned to Santa Rosa after the war and he and his wife started a family. They would have four children.

Bob Trombetta took an active role in Trombetta Distributing. He became a community booster, participating in the Rose Parade and other civic endeavors through the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Redwood Empire Association.

And he took up, in a major way, golf.

Trombetta was the fourth person to join Santa Rosa Golf & Country Club. His wife wasn’t all that wild about the game but started playing so it could be one more thing the two of them did together.

Golf became too much for Marjie Trombetta in recent years. Her husband cut back but, said son Mark Trombetta, “He was playing nine holes until last year.”

After first taking serious notice of each other at that prewar dance in San Francisco, the Trombettas for decades loved little more than to dance in each other’s arms.

“They were astounding dancers,” Robbie Trombetta said.

“They were like Fred and Ginger. It was a total joy to watch them dance. They were so cute together, just dashing.”

The couple danced many a dance at the North End’s former landmark Lena’s restaurant bar at Sixth and Adams streets, a spot now occupied by Chop’s Teen Club.

Until just last fall, Bob Trombetta would accompany Marjie to his red Ford Mustang, then his Ford C-Max hybrid and — pretty much every day — the lifelong lovers would take a nice, leisurely drive to the coast at Fort Bragg, or who knows where.

Together is where Bob and Marjie Trombetta most loved to be.

“She was the love of his life,” Robbie Trombetta said. “He was the love of her life. They could not be separated.”

Preceded in death by his brother, Al Trombetta, and his sister, Lynda Trombetta Angell, Bob Trombetta is survived by his wife in Santa Rosa, his daughter in Culver City and his son in Santa Rosa, by his sister, Florine Ellingson, of Santa Rosa, and by four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

There will be a celebration of his life in the spring.

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Together, all their lives.

 

CB

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My father was one of those. A lowly corporal and a cook in USA.  No such glorious story as that, but one of his decorations was a Combat Infantyman Badge. I've read up on the battles his unit fought in the South Pacific.  Doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

JHC

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