John Bizzack

First generation American. Born in Fairmont, Ohio to Australian immigrants. Laranze Bizjak and Anna Kacjaines. Left school at age 12 following his father's death during the Depression to help support his mother and six brothers and sisters on their farm. He worked as a laborer on construction projects until WWII. He married Jenny in 1941 before enlisting in the Army Corps of Engineers and spending three years in the Pacific Theater building airstrips and highways from Okinawa to Tinian. He was one of three servicemen invited to watch the Enola Gay take off on its mission to drop the first atomic bomb from the Tinian airstrip he built.