Charlie Audet, WWII veteran of historic combat parachute battalion, dies at 105 - The Boston Globe (2024)

“That was probably one of the saddest moments as I had lost some of my buddies,” Mr. Audet, a Tech 5 by war’s end, said in the Veterans History interview. “I was the only one transferred to that company.”

Mr. Audet, who was believed to have been the last surviving member of the group of 509th paratroopers who made the first US military combat parachute jump during World War II, died May 27, Memorial Day, in Notre Dame Health Care in Worcester.

He was 105 and had lived for decades in the Framingham house he and his wife, Ellie, moved into in 1957.

Awarded a Purple Heart for his injuries, Mr. Audet earned seven bronze campaign stars.

For their World War II heroism, members of the 509th were awarded two Presidential Unit Citations, also known as Distinguished Unit Citations, according to the 509th Parachute Infantry Association. Mr. Audet’s family said he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, as well.

When Germany surrendered in May 1945, he was among those guarding the nearby Nazi troops. And for decades after the war, Mr. Audet was active in veterans’ organizations, reaching out to help those who struggled.

“He was representative of those service members who we look to and we recognize as an example not only in service, but afterward,” said Matthew Tackett, a retired Army colonel and former 1st battalion commander with the 509th, which was reactivated years after World War II.

Mr. Audet also “was a genuinely kind person — a paratrooper who was bigger than he appeared to be in so many ways,” said Tackett, who now teaches at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island.

While everyone who experiences wartime combat has a unique experience, Mr. Audet also had one-of-a-kind uniforms. He was 5-foot-2½ inches tall and wore size 5½ shoes.

Among standard-issue military items, “the only things that fit me were the blankets and the necktie,” he said in the Veterans History interview. “Everything had to be ordered special for me as I went through the service.”

Tenacious during stateside training for combat, he kept pace with larger comrades in the most demanding circ*mstances, including lengthy mandated hikes. Those alongside Mr. Audet told him years later at veterans’ gatherings that in watching him, they didn’t want to give up, either — not if the smallest man among them was soldiering on.

“I can truthfully say that I never dropped off of a march,” he said in the Veterans History, “even though some were as long as 40 miles.”

Charles H. Audet was born in Sackville, a town in New Brunswick, Canada, on Oct. 9, 1918. He was the fourth of 10 children whose parents were Philip Audet, a barber, and Albina LeBlanc Audet.

“We had loving parents,” said his younger sister Corinne L. Prunier of Centerville. Their father “worked six days a week, never taking a vacation — they couldn’t afford it in the days of the Depression.”

As a boy, Charlie “always wanted to work,” she said.

Doing chores for others, such as shoveling snow, he earned money that he would “give my mother because he knew she needed it to take care of the rest of us.”

Mr. Audet grew up in Fitchburg, where he graduated from St. Bernard’s High School, and he was drafted into the Army in 1941. Eight of the 10 siblings served in the military: three brothers in World War II, two in the Korean War, one in the Vietnam War — and two sisters were World War II cadet nurses.

After the war, Mr. Audet went to Boston University for an associate’s degree and became an accountant. He spent most of his working years at the Fenwal manufacturing company in Ashland.

At a dance in 1952 he met Eleanore Smith, who was known as Ellie and who had been a USO dance instructor during the war. They married the following year and she went on to log more than 15,000 hours of volunteer time at their church and at the St. Patrick’s Manor retirement community in Framingham.

Ellie and Charlie, who had no children of their own, were foster parents to three infants, their relatives said.

They also were well-known dancers at any gathering.

“They loved to dance,” Prunier said. “Whenever they went to a wedding, they would be doing the jitterbug and everybody would get off the dance floor. They had it to themselves, and everybody would applaud.”

A devout Catholic, Mr. Audet “said three rosaries every day,” said Joe Yanikoski of Stoughton, Mr. Audet’s nephew and godson. When the Audets drove to Florida for a vacation, they would pull over along the way to say a rosary.

Into his 90s, Mr. Audet was Ellie’s primary caregiver during her illnesses until she died in 2011.

“He adored her,” Yanikoski said. And when Mr. Audet’s health was failing at the end, “he thanked everybody everywhere” — including each health care aide who offered assistance.

Mr. Audet, Yanikoski said, “always exuded a certain joy.”

In addition to his sister Corinne, Mr. Audet leaves two brothers, Raymond of West Springfield and Bernard of Mississippi.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Thursday in St. George Catholic Church in Framingham. Burial will be at 10 a.m. Friday in Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.

Like many veterans, Mr. Audet struggled for a while after returning home from World War II.

“The war has never left him. You don’t forget burying a buddy,” Linda H. Davis, who married one of his nephews, wrote in “Uncle Charlie’s War,” a biographical essay posted on the 509th Parachute Infantry Association website.

Yet when he looked back, Mr. Audet was grateful.

“I think the military is the greatest thing that ever happened. I probably wouldn’t do it again, but I was glad I did it,” he said in the Veterans History interview.

Along with lifelong friendships with fellow soldiers and other veterans, the military provided the financial base and the courage to return to school at war’s end — nine years after he last set foot in a classroom.

“I don’t regret one day of it because I think I came out as a better person,” Mr. Audet said of his military service. “I found more out about myself, my strengths and my weaknesses.”

Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.