photo by: Robert A. DeFrank

World War II veteran and former Powhatan Point mayor Joseph Binni will celebrate his 100th birthday Sunday. He is pictured with his uniform.

POWHATAN POINT — Family, friends and fellow veterans are wishing Joseph Binni a happy 100th birthday this weekend.

Binni, who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, will become a centenarian on Sunday.

“He is our last World War II veteran here,” Rick Smathers, adjutant at the Powhatan Point American Legion, said.

Binni, who served as a technical sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1943-45, has been a member of the legion for 26 years. He served in the 264th Artillery Battalion.

“I was in the field artillery and I never saw much of the man-to-man battle,” Binni said Friday. “We had a range of 11 miles. … They needed artillery, and they’d just call by radio or wire.”

Binni was a radio operator and received orders from the forward position. He recalled that the battalion dug in its howitzers to brace them against recoil, sometimes staying in position for a week and other times moving rapidly.

“Being one of 600 people, I did my work,” he said. “We fired 5,000 rounds of artillery during the war. The pieces weighed around 200 pounds. It comes to a million pounds of artillery we fired.”

Planes would observe from the air and direct the artillery.

“I never thought when I went in the Army they were going to utilize those 8-inch howitzers. … You can’t hit anything because they’re so far off,” Binni said. “But the system was so great, they had it all planned out. … Artillery could hit targets on the other side of a hill.”

Casualties were few in the artillery, but they did occur, Binni said.

“We had one guy, he was caught when we were in a column going to the Bulge,” he said. “There was a lone German plane strafed the line and this boy got hit. … That was the first time anybody in that battalion was a casualty.”

He said the Army experienced sub-zero weather during his service in Europe.

Their operations under challenging conditions included crossing the Rhine River over a pontoon bridge with 18 tons of artillery.

“I thought the bridge might break loose,” Binni said.

The initial deployment to England to prepare for D-Day and the invasion of Europe was not without incident. Binni recalled the engine of his ship failed.

“We were in convoy with other ships. They had to leave us,” he said.

Anti-submarine vessels circled the ship for four hours until the engine was running again.

After the engagements in Europe, Binni and others began training to fight in the Pacific theater, but this was averted by the atomic bombing of Japan in August 1945.

“I did nothing but do my job,” he said.

Binni was born in Canton, Ohio, and spent his early years there during the Great Depression.

“I was less than 6 years old. I was all over that town,” he said. “I’d go to see where I could gather anything that would be beneficial to the family. I’d have a makeshift wagon, and I’d go to the northwest area of Canton where the richer people lived. For 100 pounds of paper, you could get $2, and I used to go around there and beg all around the houses. They always had magazines and newspapers. … I’d take it down to the paper packing in southeast Canton.

“There were times in the summer, the trains would come in with vegetables and fruits, and as the transportation and rough traffic would cause some damage to fruits, they’d leave it and I’d go there and figure out what was decent and take it home,” he added.

When the coal company where his father worked closed, his family moved to Powhatan Point in the early 1930s. He remembered the destruction caused by heavy flooding there in 1936.

Years later, Binni served as the postmaster for Powhatan Point from 1964-83. He was responsible for naming and numbering all of the lots and alleys and determining which lots were occupied.

“I was the leader in establishing home delivery of mail,” he said.

Binni also worked as a coal miner. He is a member of the United Mine Workers of America.

And Binni served as mayor of Powhatan Point in the 1950s and ’60s. He recalled the frustration of seeking out money to pursue paving projects while in office. That was just a prelude of the manactvities that would occupy his later years.

“He’s very community involved,” Smathers said.