John McGrath of Elmwood Park, a reluctant World War II hero whose derring-do became well known after his depiction in the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” died Tuesday. He was 92.

For decades, Mr. McGrath’s local claim to fame was his service to the Elmwood Park Fire Department, which he joined in 1952. He was chief in 1970 and 1971, when the borough was called East Paterson. After retiring as a truck driver, he worked as the borough’s part-time fire code official.

True to the Greatest Generation, the humorously gruff Mr. McGrath, who was known as Jack, seldom spoke about what he did in the war.

Stephen E. Ambrose blew his cover.

The historian and biographer immortalized the soldiers of Easy Company, the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, in his 1992 book “Band of Brothers.”

Mr. McGrath belonged to the legendary Easy Company, whose successes stretched from D-Day to the capture of Hitler’s Bavarian outpost. The Carlstadt-born soldier had his moment on Page 100, where Ambrose describes how Mr. McGrath blew up a German tank with a bazooka shot — “the critical moment,” Ambrose writes, in the Allied forces’ taking of Carentan, France, during the invasion of Normandy.

“Band of Brothers” became a critically acclaimed miniseries in 2001, and Mr. McGrath’s exploits were officially out in the open.

“I had no idea of his war record until the miniseries — he never said anything,” said Richard Mola, a longtime friend and Elmwood Park’s mayor since 1972.

Reticence was in Mr. McGrath’s character, his son Jim said.

“The only time we heard war stories were at barbecues,” he said. “He didn’t see himself as a hero. He didn’t volunteer; he was drafted. And the reason he became a paratrooper was he could make more money to send home to his mother.”

The miniseries’ popularity forced Mr. McGrath, not an active participant in veterans’ organizations, to talk publicly about the war. Mola saw that as a good thing. His friend got the publicity, he said, “but it wasn’t like he was out there bragging.”

Interviewed by The Record during the miniseries’ run, Mr. McGrath said he learned he was in the Ambrose book when his brother-in-law gave him a copy and told him to look at page 100. He offered a theory why he was mentioned in the book just once while other Easy Company soldiers got greater play:

“You see, the way this thing came about, Stephen Ambrose goes to the reunions, and I never made it to one,” he said. “I was trying to raise a family and trying to give them something a little more than I had … so instead of spending $1,000 to go to New Orleans to listen to a lot of malarkey, I sent the kids to college.”

Mr. McGrath’s wife, Irene, said Wednesday that her husband had no time for military reunions because he was too busy with the Fire Department.