William M. Feinberg

William Feinberg was born in Bayonne, New Jersey in May 1925. When he heard of the Pearl Harbor attack, he was dining with his parents in a Jersey City restaurant, and long remembered his frightened feeling at the time. Two years later, after graduating from high school and spending a year at Cornell University, Feinberg decided to join the military.

Feinberg had seen a lot of his friends leave to fight for their country, and felt he needed to be by their side. His family had a military tradition, with some members graduating from West Point. He originally wanted to join the Coast Guard, but was rejected by that branch because his eyesight did not meet their standards. Feinberg ended up joining the Army in 1943 and was assigned to the Engineer Corps.

Following Basic Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Advanced Training as a combat engineer at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Feinberg departed from New York City for England shortly after D-Day on the HMS Queen Mary, an ocean liner converted to a troop transport ship. After a few weeks training in England, he was part of a large group of replacements for soldiers killed and wounded who landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. Feinberg remembered the detritus of battle, including “tank obstacles, barbed wire, blasted pill boxes, demolished trucks and other vehicles” still covering the shore. After a long march through mud, he and some other soldiers were transferred from the Engineers to the Military Police, because there were many enemy prisoners and not enough Military Police to guard them. 

Feinberg was sent to Cherbourg, France, where he was assigned to the 707th Military Police battalion. He was shipped around France and Belgium on various assignments, eventually arriving in northeastern France to take custody of German prisoners captured during the Battle of the Bulge. One night on guard duty, Feinberg heard a German plane dropping bombs; one landed close, causing him to suffer a concussion, which was hard to deal with while on duty.

Feinberg recalled that the German prisoners he was tasked with transporting in railroad boxcars in extremely cold weather, especially those from the Battle of the Bulge, were arrogant. While he was dining on C-rations out of a can, the prisoners were getting hot food and full meals and complained that they didn’t get enough to eat!  The prisoners were eventually incarcerated in large camps in France.

The Germans and then the Japanese surrendered while Feinberg was still in Europe. He was preparing to be shipped out to the Pacific when he got the news of the Japanese capitulation, and was luckily spared from serving there. While waiting to go home, Feinberg signed up to attend the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI), a training program to help troops find work after discharge. He took a course in accounting, because he had some prior training on the subject and wanted to become a tax attorney.

As part of his training, Feinberg was sent to a finance center in Antwerp, Belgium as an intern. The center paid all the American soldiers in the surrounding areas. He learned how to manage these payments, as well as how to convert various national currencies from European countries.  Feinberg said this experience was his first step to becoming a civilian, as he had a bed, hot meals, and a nice office job.

Feinberg arrived back in New York and was discharged in May 1946 at the rank of Corporal. Although he was back to “normal life” he recalled that he had trouble processing his thoughts, and felt that he could not feel any emotions. Feinberg remembered being very nervous and on edge because of his experiences in the war, what we call PTSD today. Eventually, however, he was able to relax.

Feinberg received several awards from the military for his service. He went on to graduate from New York University School of Law, and to clerk in the New York court system before joining his father’s law firm, Feinberg, Dee & Feinberg in Bayonne, where his brother also worked. Feinberg continued to pursue a career in law, and was appointed to several positions by the New Jersey Supreme Court. He received accolades for his work as an attorney, including the Professionalism Award and the Pro Bono Award. Feinberg also enjoyed fishing in his free time and was an active environmentalist, belonging to several local and national groups.

William M. Feinberg passed away at the age of 90 on November 2, 2015.

Additional Resource:

• Fishermen lose friend and advocate in Bill Feinberg