Portrait of Michael Linquata
Born July 5, 1925 in Gloucester
Rank: Private, Medic. Service: US Army. Division/Ship: 134th Infantry, 3rd Army (Patton's Army). Theater: Europe. Dates of Service: 1944 - 1945. Specific Battles: Battle of the Bulge. Special Citations: Four Bronze Stars.

"It's hard to hit a moving target, so we kept moving." Having graduated Gloucester High School on an accelerated schedule, Michael Linquata and the other young men in his Class of '44 were drafted into the military in January, received their basic training and were shipped overseas. Because of his near-sightedness, young Private Linquata was assigned to be a medic with the Army's 134th Combat Infantry. It was a role he would exercise with great courage and valor, earning four Bronze Stars, the French Legion of Honor, and a Presidential Unit Citation. On January 4th, 1945, left to tend to 20 wounded men with another medic when their position was evacuated, Linquata chose to surrender to the advancing Germans rather than risk losing the men to certain mortar attacks. That decision would turn into three months of hellish POW treatment in two German stalags or POW camps. When they were liberated in April, Linquata had lost a third of his body weight, but his actions saved many of the men in his care. After his recovery, Linquata returned to Gloucester, studied business at Suffolk University, worked at his father's Progressive Fish Company, and opened the Gloucester House in 1958. He married Lillian Ciulla and had four children. He was a driving force behind the creation of the Gloucester World War II Memorial on Kent Circle.