On August 18, 1945, U.S. Army Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione became the last American to die in WWII when the B-32 he was flying in over Tokyo was damaged by enemy fire.
Marchione, from Pottstown, PA, was a month shy of his 20th birthday when he died in the skies above Japan, four days after Imperial Japan had officially surrendered to the Allies.
He had enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces less than two years earlier, in November 1943. Marchione wanted to be a pilot, but the Army had other plans; it trained him to be an aerial gunner. In November 1944, he joined a Consolidated B-24 Liberator crew that was being transferred for training in photo-reconnaissance.
He went through a course to become a photographer’s assistant. By August 1945, his unit, the 20th Reconnaissance Squadron, had moved to Okinawa, which had been captured by U.S. forces less than two months earlier.
The 386th Bombardment Squadron conducted anti-shipping sweeps of the South China Sea and, if needed, could fly combat missions against the Japanese mainland. But Japan’s surrender in mid-August abruptly changed the squadron’s duties; crews now were to fly daytime photo-reconnaissance missions to monitor Tokyo’s compliance with the cease-fire.
On August 18, Marchione was selected to join a B-32 crew in a reconnaissance mission over Tokyo. They were warned that there could be hostile fire from the Japanese on the ground, who thought the Japanese airspace should remain clear until a formal surrender document was signed.
They were attacked by Japanese fire, and Marchione was hit in the chest. He died after they had landed back at the base.
It was the last air combat of the war; the next day, as part of the cease-fire agreement, the propellers were removed from all Japanese fighters. From then on, Allied flights over Japan went unchallenged.
Hammerberg enlisted in the Navy in June 1941 and served on the battleship USS Idaho and mine sweeper USS Advent.
In 1941, he underwent instruction at the Deep Sea Diving School and was assigned duty with the Salvage Unit under Service Force, Pacific Fleet.
Disregarding all personal danger, he rescued one diver who had been trapped in a cave-in of steel wreckage. After this rescue, he went even farther
Hammerberg lost his life during rescue operations at Pearl Harbor on February 17, 1945.
Disregarding all personal danger, he rescued one diver who had been trapped in a cave-in of steel wreckage. After this rescue, he went even farther
under the buried hulk and, while successfully rescuing a second diver, was pinned down by another cave-in and died.
He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on this day. In 1955, the destroyer escort USS Hammerberg was named in his honor.
The 75th death anniversary of one of the bravest heroes of WW2
“I tried to live my life in such a way that at the hour of my death, I would rather rejoice than fear,” Witold Pilecki.
➡On 25 May 1948, at 9:30 p.m., the communists killed one of the bravest defenders of Polish independence. Witold Pilecki's body was buried in an unknown location, probably on the so-called “Łączka” next to the wall of the Military Cemetery in Powązki. Throughout the People’s Republic of Poland, all information about the achievements and fate of Captain Pilecki was subject to strict censorship.
His burial place is still unknown. It was only in September 1990 that the Supreme Court acquitted Captain Witold Pilecki and his companions, revealed the unjust nature of the sentences issued, and emphasized the patriotic attitudes of the convicts.
➡The British historian, Professor Michael Foot, called Witold Pilecki one of the six bravest people in the world, fighting in an underground movement during WW2.
Pilecki, as a soldier of the Polish underground army, undertook a special mission to penetrate Auschwitz to learn the truth about the fate of thousands of people held behind barbed wire. Many years later, he expressed his opinion that Auschwitz was nothing compared to communist torture.
➡In September 1940 Pilecki undertook an extraordinary mission. He volunteered to be captured during a round-up conducted by the Germans in Warsaw.
This way, he was able to get into the German concentration camp in Auschwitz. His task was to gather information about the conditions in the camp. A month later, he sent a report to his superiors. As prisoner number 4859, he remained in Auschwitz for two years and seven months.
During that time, he organised the conspirational Military Organisation Union, consisting of over a hundred people in all commando units. He meticulously documented the grim reality of the camp, but threatened with arrest and execution, he decided to make a daring escape.
➡As a fugitive from Auschwitz, Pilecki had to remain in hiding, but under a false name, he returned to the ranks of the resistance.
He compiled his reports from Auschwitz into a comprehensive account of what the largest German concentration and death camp was. The intelligence he gathered went to the Western Allies via his Home Army commanders.
➡In 2017, the Pilecki Project Committee in Melbourne and the IPN jointly released Report "W", containing the information Pilecki gathered as an Auschwitz inmate, the yield of his sacrifice.
➡In the summer of 1944 Witold Pilecki was among the heroic participants of the Warsaw Uprising who stood on the barricades and who ended up in a German POW camp after the fighting had ended. After the war, he returned to Poland, where the Soviet occupation began.
He built a network of conspirators, thanks to whom he would provide the legal Polish authorities in London with information about the spread of communism and terror in Poland. However, he was arrested and sentenced to death after being tortured. Read a detailed description of Pilecki’s
The IPN Archive holds many more materials on Witold Pilecki; of particular value to historians are documents from the Stalinist period, such as search and interrogation reports, decisions to initiate investigations, underground records, files stolen from the Ministry of Public Security, or a decision to prosecute and the act of indictment.
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