Private Ernest Felix Bruno, Jr., 19, of Price, Utah was killed in action December 29, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge while serving in Company I, 502nd Parachute Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

He was born in Price on March 25, 1925. (Note to researchers: Some records show his birth year as 1924. The draft card he signed in 1943 says he was born in 1925.) He was the youngest of seven children born to Ernest Felix Bruno, Sr., a sheep rancher, and Carmela Pagano Bruno. Two other children, twin girls, were stillborn in 1930. His father was born in Italy in 1896 and came to the United States in 1914. His mother was from Utah, and his parents were married in 1919. His father died of pneumonia in 1942, and his mother remarried and moved to California sometime between 1945 and 1949. She died in 1987.

Private Bruno attended Price schools and graduated from Carbon County High School. He had worked on a sheep ranch and was employed by Allen-Garcia Construction Company when he registered for the draft. He was drafted October 8, 1943 and trained in California and Georgia before going overseas.

The 502nd Parachute Regiment suffered tremendous losses during the D-Day invasion. They returned to England in the fall of 1944 to assimilate and train replacement troops, and Private Bruno joined the unit at that time. They returned to France and were in the final stages of the battle for Bastogne when Private Bruno was killed.

He was initially buried in Belgium. His remains were returned to the States and buried at the Price City Cemetery in June 1949 following a Requiem Mass at the Notre Dame Catholic Church in Price.

Three of his brothers were serving in the military at the time of his death, one in Europe and two in the Pacific. All three survived the war. His last surviving sibling died in 2012.

Two other men named Bruno from Carbon County also died in the war. Staff Sergeant James L. Bruno was killed in action in Italy July 19, 1944, and PFC Orlando S. Bruno was lost at sea when the troop ship HMT Rohna was sunk in the Mediterranean on November 26, 1943. Although not brothers, they may have been cousins. Each of their fathers was born in Italy. There were 40 to 50 people named Bruno in Carbon County just before and during the war, and about one-third of them were born in Italy.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/41583267/ernest-felix-bruno

https://history.army.mil/documents/WWII/501pirbulge.htm

Ernest F Bruno