John Edward Romm Jr.

WWII veteran wounded 82 years ago at Anzio soldiers on in Ocean Pines

By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

Later this month, Ocean Pines resident, World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient John Edward Romm Jr. will do something only a very few people have done: celebrate his 107th birthday.

Romm, now closing in on a decade since he passed the century mark, remains one of the few American World War II veterans still around to remember the days of service.

And he now resides here in Ocean Pines with his grandson.

Romm, who was born on Feb. 16, 1919 in Southwest Baltimore, describes his childhood as “damn rough.” He was 10 years old when the stock market crashed and the country went into the decade-long Great Depression.

And then, just as America’s financial strain had loosened up, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States formally joined World War II in 1941.

Romm, who was 21 when he was drafted into the US Army and, found himself driving a tank in the 1st Armored Division, the first American armored unit to see combat in WWII.

Romm was discharged in 1944 after being wounded during the division’s landings on Anzio Beach, south of Rome, in late 1943.

Romm said the Allied forces had little success with a surprise assault against Axis powers, and his team was left with just a small piece of ground surrounded by Germans, who secured the area with landmines.

During an operation, Romm’s tank struck one of those mines, blowing off its track. As the crew attempted to tow the damaged vehicle, another nearby mine detonated, and Romm was thrown from the tank into the air, leaving him with facial injuries. The veteran recalled looking in a mirror after, noting, “it was just all blood.”

“That’s how I got my Purple Heart,” he added. “I wouldn’t take it. I said, ‘I don’t want no Purple Heart, what good’s a Purple Heart?’”

During his time with the 1st Armored Division, Romm saw combat throughout North Africa, including intense battles in Tunisia. They then made their way to Italy, including Anzio Beach, where Romm was injured. After the incident, Romm was sent home to the United States before World War II ended in 1945.

“It’s hard to believe, you go through all that, and here I am now talking about it,” he said in an interview last week with OC Today-Dispatch.

Despite Romm already being back in the US at the conclusion of WWII, he emphasized how relieved he felt upon hearing the war was over and that years of fighting had finally ended.

“Oh man, it was wonderful,” he said.

In the years following the war, Romm began a career as a truck driver and got married. He had known his wife, who later worked for the National Security Agency, since childhood in Baltimore.

The couple made their home in a house off the Magothy River in Pasadena, Maryland. Once they retired, they decided to travel the world.

Romm said that one of his favorite trips was to Nova Scotia, which they returned to on multiple occasions. Other destinations were Hawaii, as well as an Alaskan cruise.

A notable vacation was to Europe. According to Romm’s grandson, John Joseph Romm, he accompanied his grandparents to Munich and London when he was in his early teens.

Germany included a memorable beer garden. Then, at a dinner in England, the family dined with Queen Elizabeth’s guards.

“I don’t know how it happened, but there were some characters,” Joseph Romm said. “They partied, it was unbelievable …They loved their beer. It was so interesting. You see them standing like statues and then to see them out at a pub … they were a riot.”

“We were eating, and who came in to sit down, but the guards,” Romm added. “Oh, they were a rough bunch.”

In addition to leisure travel, Romm would, for many years, attend annual reunions of the 1st Armored Division, each held in a different state. Joseph Romm said he would often join his grandparents, but the get-togethers have since stopped.

“He’s outlived them,” Joseph Romm said. “They stopped doing that some time ago just because everybody has passed away.”

In 2010, Romm’s wife passed away at the age of 89, leaving him alone in his Pasadena home for a few years. As time went on, he was physically doing well, but when he was forced to forfeit his driver’s license at 101 due to eyesight concerns, and after observing structural issues with the house, his grandson decided to help.

The Anne Arundel residence was sold, and the pair moved to the Eastern Shore.

Joseph Romm said that he has learned a lot throughout the years from his grandfather, particularly his devotion to work. Joseph Romm noted that his own career in the home improvement business, for instance, was inspired in part by his grandfather’s building expertise.

“He could fix anything, build anything,” Joseph Romm said. “I learned from when I was a kid watching him, working with him … I can build a lot of things, do a lot of plumbing, electrical, drywall, framing, windows, doors, you name it … A lot of that stuff, I learned from him when I was a kid.”

He added that his grandfather never fails to fascinate those around him. Doctors often note that Romm is one of the last soldiers alive who remembers the war. In fact, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, only 45,000 of the 16.4 million Americans who served in World War II were alive as of 2025.

“He’s like a living encyclopedia,” Joseph Romm said. “People talk to me about some things about the history and the war, and I say I live with it, I get it firsthand.

Despite his age and two quadruple bypasses (one in the 1980s and the other in the early 2000s), Romm’s get-up-and-go attitude remains. Over the fall, he raked the leaves out of the yard nearly every day, and when the weather was warm enough, he walked the Ocean Pines streets.

“It’s unbelievable,” his grandson said.

When asked his secret to a long life, Romm said, “just eating and breathing.”