AUGUST "AUGIE" GIUSTI
PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR
Sailor helped injured crew mates
Associated Press
NEW YORK » August "Augie" Giusti, a Pearl Harbor veteran who helped get wounded crew mates to safety, died Wednesday. He was 84.
Giusti, of Ardsley, died at White Plains Hospital Center, said Kurt Eschbach, of the Edwards-Dowdle Funeral Home in Dobbs Ferry. Steve Wittenberg, an officer of American Legion Post 458 in Ardsley and friend of Giusti's, said Giusti had been in poor health for several months.
Giusti was an 18-year-old Navy trumpeter assigned to the USS West Virginia when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, drawing the United States into World War II. As Giusti was in a small boat helping injured people get to a hospital ship, a Japanese fighter plane came so close he could see the pilot's face, Giusti recalled in an interview published in the Journal News in December.
"All he had to do is fire another burst and I wouldn't be here. But he didn't," Giusti said. "It was just a terrible, terrible day. I've tried not to think about it my whole life, but I do think about it. It's something that just doesn't leave you."
Giusti was raised in Tuckahoe and Eastchester. He was a salesman at Pleasantville Ford for 50 years, retiring in 2003.