Clarence “Code” Gomberg

Clarence “Code” Gomberg served with the 343rd Medical Battalion during World War II.  He experience the war aboard a hospital train that traveled through France, the Netherlands and Belgium, picking up the wounded and returning them to French ports where they would be shipped to England or the United States.  Though a quartermaster, he tended to the wounded directly, using the standard issue medic’s kit to save, among others, two badly burned tank men.  Code carried a Browne camera with him and caught some of the war’s most dramatic moments, including the German surrender at Rheims, France.

September 1, 2012 was a bright, crisp fall day when Clarence “Code” Gomberg joined us for an interview in the Gettysburg Room of Pittsburgh’s Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum.   On that day, Mr. Gomberg was among local WWII veteran Barbara Duffy and Vietnam-era veteran Joseph Morgan to share his military experiences.  Museum curator Michael Krause generously loaned us artifacts from the museum’s collection, as he had done for the dozen interviews we previously conducted that year at Soldiers & Sailors