Navy Electrician Louis John Acompora was aboard the USS California when it was sunk at Pearl Harbor on the “Day that will live in infamy.” Surviving the ordeal, he was transferred to the USS Chicago and was involved in several South Pacific battles until it was sunk from under him at Rennell Island in 1943.
The Long Island native made it through that attack as well, and his story takes center stage at the Military History Museum in Rocky Point. On display are his uniform and personal effects, including a dollar bill that was salvaged from the California and returned to him months later.
The museum is the dream of the nearby Rocky Point VFW Post 6249 membership, whose stories are befitting of the many heroes depicted in the gallery’s hallowed halls. There’s museum advisor Joe Cognitore, the post’s commander, whose Army service in Vietnam earned him a Bronze Star with a “V” for Valor.
Another Bronze Star recipient is museum advisor Dan Guida, who operated tanks as an Army Platoon Officer in Vietnam. The producers of the movie, “Forrest Gump,” modeled the character of Lieutenant Dan after him, right down to the Tiparillo cigars he smoked in combat. Dan was played by actor Gary Sinise, who told Guida, “I played a hero; you’re a real hero.”
The museum is curated by Rich Acritelli, a military historian who served as a Staff Sergeant in the Army Reserves and the New York Air National Guard. He takes you on a museum tour, starting with famous athletes who served in the U.S. military, including Yankee great Yogi Berra, Cleveland Ace Don Feller, and Ted Williams, considered the best major leaguer ever. Featured from Long Island is Marine Corp Vet Frank Tepedino, who played alongside Yankee icons Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle, along with Hank Aaron when he was with the Braves. There’s also an Honor Role of local high school and college stars who went right into the military.
The athletes are watched over by a portrait of General Douglas MacArthur, who, Acritelli notes, was an advocate of sports in the military, believing that physical fitness and competitive spirit were essential for building effective soldiers and fostering camaraderie. The general served as a Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he introduced a more rigorous physical education program and expanded opportunities for cadets to participate in sports. He went on to serve as the president of the American Olympic Committee for the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
Hanging from the museum’s ceiling is an armory of guns used by soldiers from battles dating back to the early 1800s, including an Italian World War II Assault Rifle, an M19 60mm mortar, and a Springfield Model 1873 weapon used by the Cavalry in the Native American War. A wooden item looks like a gun but is actually a camera used for artillery training. “Instead of shooting, you took a picture,” Commander Cognitore explained. “If there’s a plane on the film, you passed.” Some weapons are at ground level, where visitors can take aim, imagining what the soldiers saw when they looked down the barrel.
Covering a wall is a rack of helmets worn by soldiers fighting for East and West Germany, Bulgaria, Japan, Vietnam, France, Russia, and the United States. The styles are representative of the World Wars and beyond. There’s a Woman’s Army Corps uniform along with shoes, medals, patches, and everything else a soldier would have on their person. War souvenirs are on hand, such as a Solomon Islands native sword, a Japanese armored vest, ornate brass vases hammered out of artillery shells from the 1918 Argonne Offensive, and one of the museum’s rarest possessions, a pair of insignias from Nazi Ernst Ernst Kaltenbrunner, a Holocaust criminal hanged after he was convicted during the Nuremberg trials.
“We were contacted by a woman whose father interrogated the Germans after World War II, and he brought the patches home,” Acritelli explained. “She wanted a place where they can be remembered as a part of world history.”
Donations since the museum opened last year on Pearl Harbor Day have been significant, the curator said, noting that the museum continues to appeal to the public for historic items. A good number of war memorabilia came from the collection of Tom Spier, the mayor of Shoreham. They also welcome monetary donations, which will land a benefactor on a Wall of Honor along with main sponsors including the Teacher’s Federal Credit Union, Riverhead Building Supply, King Quality, Sunrise Home Improvement, and builder Mark Baisch, who donated the land and the building, which will soon be joined by an annex designed to look like the original Rocky Point Train Station.
New acquisitions will be displayed with the museum’s other artifacts, such as a Union officer’s Civil War sword and a 1932 U.S. Army Sabre, and numerous plaques and displays featuring local heroes, such as Sergeant Michael S. Curtin, a Marine Corps veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Shield who lost his life rescuing people from the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The museum is a community effort, with East Islip students building stands to display the items and a Rocky Point class creating signs depicting the distances to home from battlefields across the world. Every item is carefully cataloged by Acritelli, a history teacher at Rocky Point High School and Suffolk Community College professor who has detailed the provenance of many of the items on the museum’s website at www.vfw6249scountymilitarymuseum.org