Emil Saleem Bitar

S.A. and Azzie Bitar had their first child, Wadir S. Bitar, in 1908, and over the following six years, they had four more children: George S. Bitar, Josephine Bitar, Emil S. Bitar, and Maxine Bitar. The focus of this story is on the fourth-born Bitar child, Emil. Emil was born on March 27, 1913, in Montesano, Washington, and was baptized Christian that same day. Census records indicate that neither of his parents attended school growing up, they wanted their children to get good educations and to focus on developing numerous life skills. Emil went to school in Raymond and worked at the family department store business in the summers as soon as he was old enough. The 1930 census also shows that then-seventeen-year-old Emil and one of his sisters were students. Still, all three of his older siblings listed their occupations as “Salesman” or “Saleswoman,” while S.A. listed his occupation as “Retail Merchant” selling “Dry Goods.”

Emil excelled as a Raymond High School Seagull. The school yearbook, The Gray Gull, shows that Emil went by the nickname “Abe” in a high school class of approximately thirty-five students. Emil loved music as he is listed and pictured in the First Year Orchestra and the “advanced orchestra” ensemble in which he played the obligato violin. But Emil was not the only one of the Bitar clan to catch the eye of his peers. His sister Josephine is listed in the same 1928 yearbook as “A maiden with meek brown eyes.” She participated in Drama Club, French Club, Home Economics, and the Girls Sextette, along with authoring several publications for school papers. After graduating from Raymond High School in 1930 and working one last summer at the Bitar & Sons Department Store, Emil decided to continue his education. In 1931, he enrolled in Washington State College (WSC) and moved to Pullman to become a Washington State Cougar. 

At WSC, Emil took part in numerous clubs and social organizations for WSC students. In 1934, he was on the "Rally Committee" responsible for organizing pep rallies and school spirit events throughout the academic year. The class of 1934 elected its class officers and tabbed Emil as the Vice-President for the group. Maxine Vandercook was elected as treasurer, and she is pictured next to Emil in the 1934 yearbook. This is an interesting connection for Emil because Maxine Vandercook was close friends, it appears, with one Frances Nedra Graves of Centralia, Washington. In October of 1935 the Chehalis Bee-Nugget wrote an article explaining that many local people were going to Pullman that weekend to watch the Washington State Cougars take on the University of Washington Huskies in Pullman. The article says “Miss Maxine Vandercook and Miss Frances Graves of Centralia . . . will leave Seattle Saturday morning by airplane for Spokane,” to catch the game. 

When Emil was not tending to his duties as Vice President, planning pep rallies, or pursuing the affections of Frances Graves while double majoring in history and political science he kept remarkably busy. He joined Washington State College’s Reserve Officer Training Corp program in 1935 where he served in Company G serving under the command of Captain Joseph E. Caraher. Emil was inducted into the Scabbard and Blade Society, a military honor society, as First Sergeant Bitar, during an intermission. Emil also somehow found the time to serve on the University Board of Control and the Crimson Circle Society all four years at WSC. Lastly, Emil apparently managed to look very sharp and dapper during his tenure at WSC as in 1935 he and fellow student Olive Von Nahmen were chosen by popular vote as the best dressed man and woman on campus for 1935. Emil finished his tenure at WSC and graduated with both his degrees, making him an ideal fit for law school. Emil then traded in the Crimson and Gray for the Purple and Gold of the University of Washington to attend law school. A lapse in judgement we can all forgive, as WSC did not have a law school.

After completing his law degree at UW and passing the Bar exam in 1938, Emil returned home to Raymond and put down roots in the community and once again near the family he loved. He married Frances Nedra Graves on July 6, 1939. Emil set up a private law firm in town and quickly grew reputation as a good lawyer and an up-and-coming community leader. He joined the local Elks Lodge, the Kiwanis Club, the Active Club, and was President of the Pacific County Republicans while also serving as the President of the Pacific County Red Cross for two years. Frances and Emil brought two daughters, Helen and Lea, into the world between 1941 and 1942. Emil then served as the Raymond City Attorney, a post he likely planned to keep until those dreams were put on hold. Emil had achieved much in his life to 1941; a second-generation immigrant from a tiny logging town who had earned multiple college degrees, completed law school, opened his own legal practice, sired a beautiful young family, and earned a sterling reputation as a pillar of his community all before the age of thirty. But while he was building this idyllic life for himself and his family, the world around him edged closer and closer to war.

 Back in 1935, Emil was appointed Second Lieutenant in the American Infantry Reserve upon completing his university degrees and graduation from the ROTC program. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in the Infantry Reserve on August 3, 1938 and remained enrolled in the reserve thereafter. Men like Emil were in desperately short supply for an American military caught unawares and suddenly in a war on two continents across two oceans. His time in the ROTC, proven intelligence and leadership abilities, fluency in both English and Arabic, and familiarity with the military organization were desperately needed to form the nucleus of an American Officer Corp. Emil entered extended active duty in June of 1941. He was initially assigned as an adjutant officer at Fort Lewis upon the outbreak of war before he was transferred back to the infantry, which required even more updated training. He completed the training programs at Fort Ord in California and Camp Prickett in Virginia. Upon completion, he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Captain Bitar was assigned to lead Company E of the 2nd Infantry Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, of the 3rd Infantry Division, and prepared for the United States to enter the war against the Nazis.

The Allied Invasion of Axis North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch, was planned and on May 14, 1942, Emil and hundreds of thousands of young and brave American men like him said goodbye to their families and the lives they knew and sailed for North Africa. The 3rd infantry division disembarked from Norfolk, Virginia and made first contact with enemy forces at Fedala, French Morocco, on November 8, 1942. The 3rd infantry Division roared across North Africa at lightning speed, beating back German, Italian, and pro-fascist French forces alike and successfully seizing half of Morocco before being ordered to halt and prepare for a new assignment. This was the first of many victories that the 3rd Infantry Division would claim in the war as the only American Division that fought the Nazis on every front (Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, Germany.)

Overall Commander of American Forces was none other than General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who greenlit plans to invade the island of Sicily from the newly secured North African territory. To prepare and lead the men that would hit the beaches in Sicily, he tabbed Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott. A largely forgotten name in the annals of American military commanders, Truscott was well-respected by all of his contemporaries, even winning over the famously irritable George Patton. Truscott put the men of the 3rd Infantry division through grueling new training to get them in peak physical condition for the invasion of Fascist Italy. “You play games to win, not to lose,” Truscott once explained to his son, “You fight wars to win! . . . They’re won by men who can be first-class sonsofbitches when they have to be . . . No sonofabitch, no commander.” An SOB Truscott may have been, but it produced results. The hallmark of his brutal training program was a four-mile-per-hour marching pace for men under his command (the army standard was roughly half that.) He molded the 3rd infantry division into the sonsofbitches needed to win wars, and they went into action once again in the invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Torch. 

In early August, after fighting its way across the length of the island, Truscott’s men found themselves outside the town of San Fratello. Taking the town would secure an American flank and allow for the splitting of the island in two pieces and force Axis forces to abandon the island. If the American high command thought Italy was the soft underbelly of the Axis, the men that fought in Sicily would likely beg to differ. Across from the 3rd Infantry Division and Captain Bitar’s company “E”, was the German 29th Panzergrenadier division and the Italian 26th Assietta Infantry Division. The men of the 29th  were battle-hardened, having seen seen action against the Soviet Red Army in the failed invasion of the Soviet Union. The Axis forces had seized elevated positions and placed their heavy artillery in strategic locations. The area around San Fratello was a flat valley, making it perfect for German artillery officers. Emil Bitar and his company were tasked with taking one of these elevated positions dubbed “Hill 715.” But “Hill” does not conjure the correct image in the mind. It was a massive rock sitting atop a hill roughly 566 feet high with jagged cliffs on one side and wide-open spaces leading up to the sloping incline at the base of the hill everywhere else. 

On August 4, 1943, Captain Bitar and Company E made their attempt to take the hill. The description of Captain Bitar’s action was submitted to 15th Infantry Regiment Command headquarters after the battle. The report describes how Captain Bitar “personally led his company in the attack against enemy positions atop a hill . . . held by an estimate of one Battalion of enemy infantry, reinforced by automatic weapons, mortars, and artillery.” As Bitar’s men entered the open terrain, roughly 350 yards from the hill they came under heavy fire from enemy rifles and machine guns just as “an intense artillery barrage which lasted for two hours and inflicted approximately 30% casualties” was unleashed by the Germans and Italians atop hill 715. As if that were not bad enough, Bitar and his men realized that they were charging across an enemy minefield “from which 70 anti-personnel mines were later removed.” As Captain Bitar attempted to rally his men, an artillery shell landed to his left, killing his First Sergeant instantly and “rendering his left arm useless.” Somehow maintaining his composure, Captain Bitar knew the only way out of this mess for his men was to, seemingly counterintuitively, charge the enemy position and render their artillery unusable. “In spite of his wounds,” the report continues, “Captain Bitar rallied his company and led them forward through the mine field to within 150 yards of the enemy position where he was mortally wounded by a mortar shell.” While the attack was ultimately stopped, Captain Bitar’s actions saved many of the men in his company from certain death at the hands of the well-sighted German artillery batteries. The report concludes “Captain Bitar’s leadership and bravery under intense enemy fire while seriously wounded was an inspiration to the men of his command, and reflects the finest traditions of the military service. . . It is recommended that Captain Emil S. Bitar, 0-326537, Company “E”, 15th Infantry, be awarded, posthumously, the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action.” On October 5, 1943, the army responded to the request: “By command of Lieutenant General Patton. . . Under the provisions of Army Regulations 600-45 . . . a Distinguished Service Cross is awarded, posthumously, to the following individual,” naming Captain Bitar as the recipient.

Emil’s death hit his family and those communities he had impacted very hard. One newspaper ran an article about Captain Bitar in an article entitled “Campus mourns Captain’s Death.” Another later reported on his posthumous Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest medal in the United States military. Washington State College President E.O. Holland, hurt by the losses and inspired by the sacrifices of so many of his brave former students, decided to put together pamphlets and other materials to honor the Fallen Cougars, a project that we carry on today. In an effort to acquire photographs and information about each student, E.O. Holland contacted the parents of each fallen Cougar. The Bitar’s were quite touched by President’s Holland’s interest in honoring their son and wrote a letter to him in September of 1944 stating “We are in receipt of your fine letter and the beautiful tribute and honor of our dear son Emil. We will treasure both of these, especially the tribute, for it is symbolic of the ideals he, and others like him, cherished, and so unselfishly sacrificed for a worthy cause.” The letter concludes with “From each and every member of the family we wish to express our appreciation for your sincere interest. We are yours very truly, Mr. and Mrs. S.A. Bitar.”  In another article S.A., showing the kind of class that very few people would be able to show under such circumstances, told another newspaper that he was “sure the sacrifice that my son has offered for the betterment of humanity will help to preserve these great United States of America, with its just doctrines.” 

Time marched on, and very little was produced about the Bitars in the pages of newspapers. However, in August of 1955 the Daily Chronicle in Centralia Washington published an article about Mrs. Frances Bitar receiving a special achievement award from the Army. In the aftermath of the war and the loss of her husband. Frances took a job with the Army at Fort Lewis beginning in 1945. The article refers to Frances as a “dark haired mother of two daughters.” Helen and Lea, fourteen and thirteen years old respectively, attended school in Lakewood, Washington. At the writing of the article, the Bitars lived in Tacoma, but they remain proud of their father’s legacy which was immortalized in the renaming of the main road in Fort Lewis: Bitar Avenue. 

Bitar Avenue is not the only memorial to Captain Bitar that remains to this day. He was laid to rest at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial, (Nettuno, Citta Metripolitana di Roma Capitale, Lazio, Italy), in Plot F, Row 5, Grave 3. His name is emblazoned on the World War II memorial on the main campus of Washington State University in Pullman where he once marched in ROTC regalia, served on clubs and committees, won awards for fashion, met the love of his life and mother of his children, and more. Emil Bitar was a lot of things over the course of his life, a Raymond Seagull, A Washington Husky, a soldier in the United States Army, a father, a husband, a son, a war hero, and a Washington State Cougar. But we must not forget that he was a man that should have lived a much longer life with that family, those college friends, his loving wife and adoring daughters. Perhaps Emil is also a lesson for us today, a lesson about the price that is paid in blood of our best and brightest, and the agony of those they leave behind. At leas that is the lesson that one Raymond Seagull and Washington State Cougar taught another, seven decades after he sacrificed his life battling authoritarian oppression.