A celebrated centenarian: The Johnny Cirelle story
To wrap up our Service Spotlight stories for 2024, we take a look at the military service of a World War II veteran who played a big part in a recent War Memorial ceremony.
Johnny Cirelle of St. Clair Shores, turned 100 in August. He was born in Pennsylvania to Italian immigrants who came to the U.S. in 1916. In June, Cirelle attended The War Memorial’s 80th anniversary of D-Day commemoration and was one of three World War II veterans featured in a tribute video.
Cirelle, one of nine children, graduated from St. Anthony High School in Detroit, then enlisted in the Navy in May 1942. His basic training took place in Rhode Island.
“We were there for only five weeks,” he recalled. “Usually, it would be about six months, but they needed bodies for the war.”
From Boston, Cirelle embarked on the USS Boyle, a 348-foot-long destroyer.
“I worked in the kitchen. I had the best job because I ate good,” he said. “I ate the officers food and the rest was garbage. I would help the cook out and everything.”
After six months of kitchen duty on the Boyle, Seaman First Class Cirelle then was responsible for keeping the ship, which had about 300 men on it, clean.
“It had four, 5 inch .38-caliber guns, torpedoes and depth charges,” he said.
The Boyle took part in the naval battle of Casablanca in November 1942. There, fighting occurred between American ships covering the invasion of North Africa and French State ships defending the neutrality of French Morocco.
“There were about 90 ships with troops, battleships, and cruisers,” he said. “We hit Casablanca and the other half went to Algiers in the Mediterranean. We stayed at Casablanca about two weeks, then we came back.”
The Boyle then helped transport troops, food and war materials across the Atlantic Ocean from the U.S. to places like Algeria, France, Oran and North Africa. It took about one week to traverse the ocean, something Cirelle did in the war about 30 times- 15 trips each way.
He later served aboard the USS Earle, also a destroyer.
“It was the same as the Boyle,” he said. “They were all made in Quincy, Massachusetts. It was a smaller destroyer that was part of convoys of ships that we escorted. The Earle was in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Mediterranean.”
The Earle received two battle stars for World War II service.
Like the Boyle, Cirelle worked in the Earle’s kitchen as a mess boy. He would work alongside two cooks.
“We would load the refrigerators up a day ahead and from there, bigger ships would unload food on the Earle,” Cirelle said.
Toward the end of the war, Cirelle found himself in the China Sea on the USS Gherardi, another destroyer vessel.
Discharged from the Navy in 1946, Cirelle said he enjoyed his time in the military.
“This generation doesn’t remember World War II,” he said. “After the war was over, they would show on TV how the war started once a week. You don’t see that anymore.”
He’s been a member of the Cpl. Walter F. Bruce VFW Post 1146 in St. Clair Shores since 1948. Cirelle married Gilda in 1951. She passed in 2013 at age 83. The couple had four kids, over a dozen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
*This story originally was published in the November-December edition of Live Inspired Magazine, a War Memorial publication.