Framingham was home to one of the last World War II paratroopers. He has died at 105

FRAMINGHAM — They don’t make them like Charlie Audet anymore.

Audet, who died on Memorial Day , was a true American hero. He survived numerous dangerous missions as a paratrooper in World War II, jumping behind enemy lines during some of the most chaotic battles in world history.

He was 105 years old.

“He was such a remarkable man. I first learned about him in 2021 when I started in Framingham, and I knew we had to honor him on Veterans Day,” said Kathleen Lang, Framingham's director of veterans services . “He was such a lovely man — to think what he did at his stature, being a paratrooper in World War II, he had incredible courage. He was so active, even when he was well over 100 years old. When it snowed he would take out his leaf blower and blow the snow off his driveway.”

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Audet’s story is one of a dwindling generation. An immigrant whose family came to the United States before the Great Depression in search of a better life, he found himself representing his adoptive country in the bloodiest conflict in human history.

After the war, Audet inspired everyone he touched with his selfless acts, including serving as a foster parent for years alongside his life partner, Ellie. There was his zest for life, swimming laps at a local pool well into his 90s. And he was regarded as the life of every party he attended, even after becoming a centenarian.

Audet's nephew says he had an unexplainable charisma

Joe Yanikowski, Charlie’s nephew and godson, told the Daily News that Audet had a special, unexplainable charisma that touched everyone he met.

“The real Charlie Audet is not just a man who jumped out of an airplane — that was how the Army saw him," Yanikowski said. "What I’ll remember is whether it was walking, being pushed in a wheelchair or wheeled in on a gurney, everyone always flocked to him and reacted like he was special. I saw it 1,000 times, everyone — especially women — would talk about how special and cute he was, like he was Santa Claus or their long-lost grandfather.

"He just had this special connection with people.”

Audet was born on Oct. 9, 1918, in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. His father, Philip, was a barber. According to Corinne Prunier, Audet's 100-year-old sister, business dried up for Philip when a foundry in town closed down. So when Audet was 5, his family immigrated to Fitchburg, in search of work.

“A lot of people left the town (Sackville), so there really wasn’t any work," Prunier told the Daily News. "So he (Philip Audet) left with his family to America, with Charlie and four other siblings. I was the first (Audet) to be born in the United States,”

Philip and his wife, Albina, along with what would become 10 children, settled in a four-bedroom apartment in Fitchburg. Corinne described the experience as very loving, despite the family not having much in the way of either space or resources.

“We didn’t have much, but our parents loved us very much," Prunier said. "I have a lot of fond memories growing up — I remember our father would flip over the dining cloth on our table and draw a Parchessi board on it for us to play. It was a very loving childhood."

Audet was drafted nine months before Pearl Harbor

Audet graduated from St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg . He was working as a bellhop at the former Hotel Raymond, also in Fitchburg, when he was drafted by the Army in March 1941 — nine months before the U.S. would get directly involved in the war, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

“They said it would only be for one year," Audet said in a series of interviews recorded in 2021 with his grandnephew, Jack Nicas. "The training wasn’t too tough, we didn’t have the equipment yet, we had World War I stuff. They were really just starting to build the barracks, we put up 40 barracks down in Camp Edwards (on Cape Cod)."

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But after Pearl Harbor, "we were all mustered up again and sent out to a National Guard camp in Providence," Audet said in the interviews. "We were ordered to secure the beaches from Maine to Florida, because we were worried about an invasion.”

At just 5-foot-2 and 123 pounds, Audet was among the smallest enlisted men in the war, requiring custom-made clothing to fit his small frame. But his stature would be put to effective use, as he was frequently tabbed to run messages between field commanders due to his quickness and agility.

“They were recruiting for the airborne and they wanted to have soldiers that had at least one year of service, and I had that," Audet said. "In a platoon, there was no incentive to do anything — you were just a grunt and there was no excitement. We said what difference does it make the way we die? Whether it's jumping out of parachutes or getting machine-gunned to death , we were going to be infantry either way.”

Audet joins the famed 509th Infantry Regiment

Audet would join the famed 509th Infantry Regiment , a trailblazing group of soldiers that would be involved in some of the earliest combat jumps the U.S. would undertake in the war.

Audet’s first major jump came as part of Operation Torch in 1942 , when he flew from England to Algeria as part of the Allied invasion of North Africa.

“There was no fear, we knew that everything was planned and we felt that if you followed the Army, usually they would do the right thing,” Audet said in the interviews. “We landed in the desert and ended up having to hike 10 miles.”

Audet and his unit would eventually help secure an airstrip in Algeria to complete his first mission. The major action he would see would take place in Italy. In 1943, Audet jumped from behind enemy lines as part of the allied invasion of Italy, landing in Avellino, a town 30 miles east of Naples, where he eventually met up with fellow paratroopers and helped demolish a Nazi-occupied bridge.

Battle of Anzio proves to be dramatic experience

Audet’s most dramatic experience in World War II would come during the Battle of Anzio in January 1944 . He was part of a surprise amphibious assault that took German and Italian defenders by surprise, but would soon be stuck in a brutal battle as the Axis powers clung to control of the region.

“The British landed on one side and the Americans on another, so we took one side and looked to see what kind of contacts we could make, and we had to wait for supply ships to bring in more heavy equipment,” Audet recalled.

Audet and his unit quickly established a small base camp, but the activity would be paralyzed by a strong German response, which used heavy artillery to pin down the Allied advance. Audet was stuck living in a fox hole and only able to move at night.

“We were there for about three months," he said. "The fighting soon became very fierce and we were probably about 10 miles in from the beach, so we got our foxholes dug and all that kind of stuff. After the Germans got set up, we were bombarded 24 hours a day, and held down really and couldn’t move too much. We didn’t move at all during the daytime, if we did anything at all we had to do it during the night. We had a lot of casualties. This was the first time we had such a serious condition — our job was not survival, it was to make sure the Germans didn’t penetrate our area.”

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Audet witnessed the grisly action from his foxhole near the Anzio beach, which he described as being witness to constant tragedy.

“I saw quite a few good dog fights," he said. "We had our own little piper cubs that would do scouting and try to stay pretty close to the ground. One day I saw we had a small piper cub come through the area, and a German fighter plane came and tried to knock him out, and there were some trees and the piper cub was close to the trees, and the fighter pilot, trying to shoot at the piper cub, flew so close to the ground, he couldn’t pull out and he crashed, and we witnessed that.

"Tragedy was everywhere."

Eventually, the Allies created a big enough offensive to push the Axis back off the beach, giving Audet the safety to push forward, although his time in danger was hardly over. He would take part in the Battle of the Bulge , where he was hit by German shrapnel in his arm. He was briefly out of action, then was back on the front lines when the German army surrendered in May 1945.

'We would get letters, but he couldn't tell us where he was'

While Audet was in Europe, his family was largely kept in the dark about his activities, and it wasn’t until he was much older when he began to talk about his experiences. Prunier, who was still in high school when her brother was drafted, told the Daily News that family members had know idea what he was doing in Europe.

“We knew that he was a paratrooper, but other than that, we didn’t even know when he was going over,” she said. “Everything was kept very secretive, because of the war. We would get letters, but he couldn’t even tell us where he was at the time.”

Prunier said eight of the 10 Audet children served in the military in some capacity, including her other brothers, Donald and Raymond, who were also in World War II, and she worked as a cadet nurse.

When Audet returned home from the war, he attended Boston University and worked at Ashland-based Fenwal, a temperature control manufacturer , for 27 years. He met his wife, Ellie, at a dance hall in Worcester in 1952, and the two were together until her death in 2011.

Audets had lived in the same green ranch-style house on Central Street in Framingham since 1957. While the couple had no children of their own, they had more than 50 nieces and nephews.

“I saw him and Ellie every other weekend for 68 years," Yanikowski said. "He would come over and my Dad and I would go sailing with him on the Charles River — he wasn’t just an uncle, he was like a second father."

Audets were steady volunteers at St. Patrick's Manor

The Audets spent their retirement years volunteering at St. Patrick’s Manor , where Charlie put in more than 15,000 hours of service. Even after his 100th birthday, he would guide wheelchairs used by residents decades younger than him into church.

In more recent years, Audet would be recognized for his outstanding service, with Framingham designating last Oct. 9 as "Charlie Audet Day." A Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient, Audet was regarded as one of the last American paratroopers from World War II, and is believed to have been the last surviving original member of the historic 509th.

Besides his sister, Audet leaves his brothers Raymond (98) and Bernard (92). Prunier said she believes one of the reasons she and her siblings have had such longevity is because they grew up in a loving home.

“My father was born premature — he only weighed 3 pounds when he was born in 1886 — but he lived to be 94, and I had the most wonderful father, and I had the most wonderful mother,” Prunier said. “We were a happy family together, and I always felt my parents cared for us and took such good care of us.”

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham was home to one of the last World War II paratroopers. He has died at 105