March 6, 1917 – Sept. 27, 2019
Carmen J. “Carl” Covino, of Hamburg, a World War II veteran and retired steelworker, died Sept. 27 after a struggle with congestive heart failure. He was 102.
Born in Lackawanna, he attended Lackawanna High School and served in the Army in Europe as a machine-gunner with the First and Third Armies during World War II.
He landed at Utah Beach six days after the D-Day Invasion and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
He attained the rank of corporal and received the Silver Star and the French Legion of Honor Medal.
He began working at Bethlehem Steel in 1933. An overhead crane operator for 20 years and a stock shear man for 25 years, he retired in 1978.
Mr. Covino was the last surviving founding member of the Galanti Athletic Association in Hamburg.
He also was a member of the Town of Hamburg Seniors and the Blasdell Lilly House Seniors.
He and his wife, the former Anastasia “Sally” Hawrylczak, were honored for their military service on Hometown Hero banners displayed on Buffalo Street in Hamburg in 2016.
Mr. Covino told Buffalo News reporter Barbara O’Brien that they had begun dating before the war and he did not want her to join the Army.
“Her brothers were in, so she went in,” he said. She served stateside in the Women’s Army Corps as a supply clerk.
They were married in 1946.
A cook in the Frontier Central School District, she died in 2008.
Survivors include two sons, James and David; two daughters, Marilynn Tischler and Carol Deeb; a brother, Cosmo; and three grandchildren.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 2, in St. Mary’s of the Lake Catholic Church, 4737 Lake Shore Road, Hamburg.
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© 2019 The Buffalo News
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