An Italian Immigrant Turned German POW, Turned American Hero
By Adair Olney
Augustine B. Cristiani
October 17, 1920 - March 3, 2003
Gus Cristiani pictured in the Lockport High School Yearbook in Lockport, New York, 1938.
Citation: "U.S School Yearbooks, 1900-1999, Augustine Cristiani,” Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/imageviewer/collections/1265/images/31244_188159-00030?usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA262&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=95498565, accessed June 28th, 2021.
Often, the phrase “American hero” connotes someone born and raised in the United States who bravely served our country without hesitation. But what if they were born in a different country, on an entirely different continent? Gus Cristiani was born in Italy, but came to the United States as a young child and spent the rest of his life here. Despite his immigrant status and association with Italian-Americans, an immigrant group that was treated poorly when he was growing up, Gus valiantly served in three wars for the United States: World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Cristiani was an avid airman who spent much of his adult life in the Air Force, a military man whose service to our country never wavered.
Augustino B. Cristiani was born on October 17th, 1920, to parents Giovanni and Maria Cristiani.[1] While most Italian-Americans trace their ancestral origins to southern Italy, Gus spent the first six years of his life in Alessandria, Italy, a small city in the heart of one Italy’s northern provinces, Piedmont.[2] Cristiani’s birth place is described as having a “multiplicity of landscapes,” where “Alpine flora flourishes alongside the Mediterranean scrub,” with the province also boasting “important cultural heritage… from Roman remains” to the “imposing ruins of castles” that are found in and about the countryside.[3]
The Cristiani family, consisting only of Giovanni, Maria, and Augustino, decided to leave their familiar home in Italy in pursuit of a better life for themselves; they began their journey towards the American dream on August 28, 1926.[4] Leaving behind Maria Cristiani’s brother, Guiseppe Bellario, as their departure contact, the Cristiani family bid their former life in Italy goodbye and looked ahead to their new life overseas.
Just one of the many Italian families emigrating to the United States, the Cristiani family left in hope for a better life in the 1920s. Disease and natural disaster pushed many to make the journey across the Atlantic, yet the rise of fascism through the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini drove masses of Italians to consider immigration to the United States.[5]
However, Italians desperate to escape Mussolini’s rise to power and a general corrupt political climate would face great challenges and loopholes before they could become American citizens. At the time of Giovanni, Maria, and Augustino’s immigration process, the United States had imposed the 1924 Immigration Act on Italy, “one of the most restrictive immigration laws in US history.”[6] Given widespread nativist sentiment against immigrants that were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, Southern and Eastern Europeans faced national origin quotas that severely restricted their immigration to the United States.[7] Fighting to make a positive change in their lives and move to the United States, the Cristiani family had to emigrate to Canada first, and eventually make their way south to the United States.[8]
Despite the fact that Italians “represented more than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population,” this large immigrant group faced disgust and antipathy from other Americans who had come before them; many Americans were not pleased with this new wave of European immigrants, especially those that starkly differed visually from the fair featured northwestern European immigrants.[9] Italian immigration remained high throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as many Italian-Americans fled their homeland due to “diseases and natural disasters” that their “fledgling” government could not handle.[10] Hardworking families, such as Gus’s, faced ethnic slurs and discrimination due to their national origin.[11]
After their arrival in Canada in August of 1926, Giovanni, Maria, and Augustino traveled south, crossing another border on their journey into the United States before arriving in the surrounding area of the iconic Niagara Falls.[12] It is possible that the Gus and his family traveled to Canada before they went to the United States because of the U.S government’s strict immigration laws at the time. In her book, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, Mae Ngai discusses the obstacles many Southern and Eastern European immigrants faced as part of their arrival in the United States. Ngai uses the story of an Italian immigrant who, “lived most of his life in Buffalo,” yet after taking a vacation to Canada one summer, was ordered deported, “on grounds that he had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude at ‘time of entry.’”[13] With a similar life story to the Cristiani family, this Italian man by the name of Gestini and his threat of deportation offers a glance into the challenges of being an Italian-American during the 1920s.[14]
As part of their adjustment to living in the United States, all three members of the Cristiani family chose to Americanize their names: Maria became Mary, Giovanni became John, and Augustino became Augustine, and even later chose to go by the nickname Gus.[15] The Cristiani family’s decision to Americanize their names may have been part of a deeper social desire to blend into a country that was notorious for not welcoming Italians, even ostracizing these immigrants from the rest of society, which was an issue that was only aggravated with the breakout of World War II.[16]
Gus attended Lockport High School, in Lockport, New York, a small town close to iconic Niagara Falls.[17] A photo of young Gus Cristiani is captured in Lockport High School’s yearbook, describing the sixteen-year-old Italian-American as “accurate” and “bashful.”[18] Cristiani also took part in Lockport High School’s orchestra, as well as chemistry classes; beneath his yearbook photo is the word “Chemist” to describe Gus.
Their shared identity of their Italian ancestry may have brought Gus and his future wife, Frances Trusso, together; evidence suggests that they met in Chautaqaua County, New York.[19] Like Gus, Frances came to the United States as a very young child and spent much of her life in western upstate New York in the surrounding Niagara Falls region. Hailing from Tortorici, Italy, a small town on the island of Sicily, the former Francesca and her family landed on the shores of New York at three years old in 1925.[20] The Sicilian-born Trussos would have been one of the few lucky families who successfully passed through the restrictions of the 1924 Immigration Act. A yearbook photo from the late 1930s is evidence of the now Frances Trusso’s adjustment to her new life in the United States: she reportedly was very involved in church affairs, choir, dancing, reading, and she adorned the nickname “Giggles” at her high school in Jamestown, New York.[21] The pair were wed in 1943, one year before Gus would become a German prisoner of war in World War Two.[22]
Due to Italy’s position in the Axis Powers during World War Two, Italy’s reputation in the United States deteriorated. Anti-Japanese, -German, and -Italian sentiment grew by the day among angry Americans who were ready to join in the global fight against these countries. Surveillances of heavily Italian neighborhoods began, and some Italian-American men were even held in detention centers for months on end, simply because of their heritage and the country they had once left behind.[23] Although the large majority of this immigrant group agreed that “There was no doubt about being on the American side of the war… there was great sadness…all things Italian should be suspect and hateful.”[24]
It must have been very difficult for young men like Gus Cristiani, who were being treated as aliens in their own home. However, As World War II loomed on the United States’ horizon, twenty one-year-old Gus enlisted for the draft in the hub of New York City; he was prepared to return to the continent he once left and do whatever he needed to defend the United States.[25] At the time of his draft enlistment, Gus had completed two years of college, which would in turn grant him the military rank of Private for his future service in the Second World War.[26]
The particular type of plane Gus flew in World War II — the B-17 Bomber Flying Fortress
Citation: “B-17 42-31346 / Shack Rabbit,” b17flyingfortress.de, https://b17flyingfortress.de/en/b17/42-31346-shack-rabbit/, accessed August 19th, 2021.
Gus served in the Army Air Corps as a B-17 bomber pilot, eventually rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant.[27] While serving in the 388th Bomb Group while on a mission during the latter half of the Second World War, Gus was flying a B-17 flying fortress with his crew, nicknamed the “Shack Rabbits,” when he was hit by flak after falling out of formation from a mission to Klein Machnow in Berlin, on March 6th, 1944.[28] He would become a POW, prisoner of war, for much of the rest of World War Two.[29]
Following his service in the Army Air Corps in the Second World War, Cristiani joined the newly created U.S Air Force, in which he continued to serve in two more major conflicts, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.[30] After years of serving as a career Military Officer in the Air Force, Gus spent the latter fraction of his life as Director of the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center.[31] The now-Colonel chose Denver as a place to retire in 1979, after his world-wide missions took him around the globe, and namely the western United States.[32] His “beloved Colorado” served the last twenty-four years of his life, specifially the Centura Senior life Care Center, where his family notes in his obituary he “received wonderful, kind, and dignified care.”[33] The Cristiani’s spent fifty-three years together until Frances’ passing on April 14, 1996.[34] The couple saw one another through many decades together, their lives often defined by Gus’s valiant and service to the U.S through his years of military service. Leaving behind a legacy of extraordinary military service, Gus Cristiani is also survived by a multitude of family.[35] He died on March 2, 2003.[36]
Gus was buried with full military honors at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado in March of 2003.[37] The story of Gus Cristiani’s life possesses many incredible facets and journeys: an Italian-American who fought three separate wars on behalf of the United States is a clear example of unwavering love and respect for country. Gus’ devotion to serving his country never wavered, even after the United States had not always been a welcoming place for Italian-Americans like him. Time spent as a German Prisoner of War during World War Two did not diminish Gus Cristiani’s courage, but strengthened it. An avid airman who spent decades fighting from the skies, Gus Cristiani can further be memorialized by his unwavering fortitude and commitment to a country that had not always treated him the same.
Footnotes ↓
[1] "Augustine Albert Christiani, U.S Social Security Applications and Claims Index,” Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/39010707:60901?tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&_phsrc=cEA256&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Alessandria,” ItalianAgencyforNationalTourism.com, http://www.italia.it/en/discover-italy/piedmont/alessandria.html, accessed July 20th, 2021.
[4] "U.S Border Crossings from Canada to the U.S, 1895-1960,” Ancestry.com, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=1075&h=3479758&tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA263&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[5] “Italian Immigration,” SpartacusEducational.com, https://spartacus-educational.com/USAEitaly.htm, accessed July 21st, 2021.
[6] “Another time in history that the US created travel bans — against Italians,”Pri.org, https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-10-02/another-time-history-us-created-travel-bans-against-italians, accessed July 21st, 2021.
[7] Ibid.
[8] "U.S Border Crossings from Canada to the U.S, 1895-1960,” Ancestry.com, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=1075&h=3479758&tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA263&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[9] “Immigration and Relocation in U.S History” LibraryofCongress.com, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/the-great-arrival/#:~:text=Most%20of%20this%20generation%20of,become%20a%20legend%E2%80%94Ellis%20Island.&text=By%201920%2C%20when%20immigration%20began,the%20nation's%20foreign%2Dborn%20population., accessed July 20th, 2021.
[10] Ibid.
[11] "During WWII, the U.S Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security,” Smithsonianmag.com, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/italian-americans-were-considered-enemy-aliens-world-war-ii-180962021/, accessed July 12th, 2021.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Deportation Policy,” Impossible subjects: illegal aliens and the making of modern America, Mae Ngai, accessed August 28th, 2021.
[14] Ibid.
[15] "Augustine Albert Christiani, U.S Social Security Applications and Claims Index,” Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/39010707:60901?tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&_phsrc=cEA256&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[16] "During WWII, the U.S Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security,” Smithsonianmag.com, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/italian-americans-were-considered-enemy-aliens-world-war-ii-180962021/, accessed July 12th, 2021.
[17] "U.S School Yearbooks, 1900-1999, Augustine Cristiani,” Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/imageviewer/collections/1265/images/31244_188159-00030?usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA262&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=95498565, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[18] Ibid.
[19] "Find A Grave Index,” Findagrave.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/24388155:60525?tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&_phsrc=cEA265&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[20] "Francesca Trusso, U.S Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists,” Ancestry.com, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=7488&h=2000826681&tid=&pid=&queryId=7353d489c589ccbbf0d6314c336b742a&usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA266&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[21] "U.S School Yearbooks 1990-1999, Frances Trusso,” Ancestry.com, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=7488&h=2000826681&tid=&pid=&queryId=7353d489c589ccbbf0d6314c336b742a&usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA266&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[22] "Find A Grave Index,” Findagrave.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/24388155:60525?tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&_phsrc=cEA265&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[23] "During WWII, the U.S Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security,” Smithsonianmag.com, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/italian-americans-were-considered-enemy-aliens-world-war-ii-180962021/, accessed July 12th, 2021.
[24] Ibid.
[25] "World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” Ancestry.com, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8939&h=4288695&tid=&pid=&queryId=44e16dba3fa06903b896614b62be1a97&usePUB=true&_phsrc=cEA255&_phstart=successSource, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] "B-17 Flying Fortress,” Americanairmusuem.com, http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/7100, accessed July 12th, 2021.
[29] "Augustine Cristiani Obituary,” Legacy.com, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/denverpost/name/augustine-cristiani-obituary?pid=852056, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[30] "Augustine Cristiani Obituary,” Legacy.com, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/denverpost/name/augustine-cristiani-obituary?pid=852056, accessed June 28th, 2021.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid
More Stories
