Valparaiso's Louis Paul Auble said goodbye to his wife, three young sons and father just before Christmas, 1942 as he left for Camp Gordon in California to serve his country. He was 29 at the time and just hitting his stride as a family man and professional painter and interior decorator. He fought with General Patton's army across north Africa and into Italy as a mortarman with the 83rd Chemical Battalion. By late 1943 Italy was fractured in half with the lower part of the "boot" aligned with the Allies, while Hitler and Mussolini desperately tried to hold the north - including Rome - and retake the south. Running the Germans out of the north would create a wide-open path directly to Germany and provide vital ground operations for air attacks. Hitler established a series of defensive fronts across the central Italy that would collectively be known as the Winter Line. Private Auble was aboard LST-422 in the early-morning hours of January 26, 1944, part of a 13-ship convoy sailing into the port city of Anzio - behind the Winter Line. The ships carried tens of thousands of men, tanks, trucks, ammunitions and fuel needed to dislodge the Germans from Italy once and for all. A fierce winter storm kicked up over the Tyrrhenian Sea with gale force winds, 30-foot waves, and ice, snow, rain and hail. As the ships anchored at sea a few miles off the coast waiting for their calls to port the storm intensified. The LST-422 was blown from its anchor and was tossed into an enemy underwater minefield that until that point no one knew was there. The explosion ripped a huge hole into the starboard and bottom of the ship allowing the sea to rush into the below decks where the entire 83rd Chemical Battalion was encamped - they never stood a chance. Private Auble died in those icy waters that night; he was never recovered. He would never learn of the challenges his youngest son Ray "Buddy" Auble would endure with an often fatal heart condition and how the whole city of Valparaiso rallied around "Blue Baby Buddy," the son of a dead war hero. We learn how Lucile, Louis's wife would die young as well - at the age of 38 - making orphans out of the three boys who would live with other family members. We learn of Buddy's triumphant recovery from so much tragedy.