World War II US Army Capt. Willibald Bianchi survived two chest wounds from Japanese gunfire, the Bataan Death March, wretched captivity in prisoner-of-war camps and the sinking of his first POW transport ship by his personal countrymen.
For his bravery in battle, he was given the Medal of Honor, the US navy’s highest award for valor.
But Bianchi by no means knew of his commendation, nor would he ever see his Minnesota home once more.
He wouldn’t survive a second assault by US warplanes on a POW ship on which he was being held. According to his Japanese captors, Bianchi was killed when the POW ship he was on was attacked by US forces off the coast of Formosa (now Taiwan) in early 1945.
But his physique was by no means recognized, and his identify was added to the Walls of the Missing on the Manila American Cemetery, together with greater than 37,000 others who, because the memorial says, “sleep in unknown graves.”
On Wednesday, for Bianchi, greater than 80 years after his death, that standing modified. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency introduced that Bianchi’s stays had been amongst some 300 units of unknowns recovered on Taiwan in 1946.
After their discovery, these stays had been transferred to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also referred to as Punchbowl, in Hawaii and buried in a grave of unknowns, in accordance an company press launch.
Three years in the past, these stays from Taiwan had been disinterred and new examinations begun, main to Bianchi’s identification in August, the company mentioned, including that the outcomes had been made public on Wednesday after Bianchi’s household was absolutely briefed.
The battle hero will get a closing burial in his hometown of New Ulm, Minnesota, in May, the company mentioned.
It will come greater than 85 years after he left the United States.
In early 1941, months earlier than the US would enter World War II with the December 7 Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, Bianchi requested a Philippine project and was despatched to work with the Philippine Scouts, a US Army unit of Filipino troopers led by American officers, in accordance to a Defense Department account of his Medal of Honor.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, in addition they attacked US forces within the Philippines. By February 1942, the Japanese had pushed most of the US and Philippine forces onto the Bataan Peninsula, the 40-mile-long, 25-mile-wide strip of land that shelters Manila Bay from the South China Sea.
It was there that Bianchi’s heroism was first seen, and the place his actions would carry him a Medal of Honor commendation.
Commanding an organization of the Philippine Scouts, he volunteered to lead a platoon to take out two Japanese machine gun nests, a Defense Department account says.
“When the struggle kicked off, Bianchi was shot twice via the left hand, however as an alternative of stopping for first help, he tossed apart his rifle and commenced capturing with his pistol as an alternative. When he got here throughout the primary machine gun nest, he shortly silenced it with grenades.
“Bianchi was shot twice more in the chest, but again, instead of getting help, he climbed onto a US tank and took command of its anti-aircraft machine gun. He blasted the second enemy machine gun position until he was shot again and completely knocked off the tank,” the account says.
It took him a month to get better from his wounds, and he was nonetheless on the peninsula when the American and Philippine forces, greater than 70,000 males, surrendered to Japanese troops on April 9.
Bianchi and the others had been marched up the peninsula to POW camps within the north below brutal situations in a 65-mile trek infamously often called the Bataan Death March.
Untold numbers died, however as a pacesetter Bianchi tried to hold spirits as excessive as he might, in accordance to his biography on the Minnesota Medal of Honor web site.
After the death march, Bianchi endured a collection of POW camps earlier than, in December 1944, he discovered himself on a POW ship anchored in Subic Bay, Philippines.
The Americans known as these vessels “hell ships” as a result of of the situations aboard. Men had been packed into in darkened holds with no air flow – and temperatures properly above 100 levels Fahrenheit (38 levels Celsius) – so tightly there was no room to sit.
To make issues worse, the POW ships had been typically unmarked, their human cargo nameless.
So Bianchi’s “hell ship” was attacked by American planes whose pilots didn’t know that their countrymen had been aboard.
That ship sank, however Bianchi survived, and the Japanese transferred him to one other jail ship that suffered the same destiny off Taiwan on January 9, 1945.
“An American plane dropped a 1,000 pound bomb into the hold of the anchored ship. The US was unaware the target was filled with American prisoners of war. Bianchi was killed instantly,” the Minnesota Medal of Honor web site says. He was 29 years previous.
Just 5 months later, Bianchi’s mom, Carrie Bianchi, would settle for the Medal of Honor on her son’s behalf at a ceremony in Minnesota.
She would write later, “As a mother, I am proud to be able to give to this generation and to our beloved America the most precious gift that life makes possible, my only son,” the web site says.
Bianchi was one of 473 troops to obtain the Medal of Honor for actions throughout World War II. With Bianchi’s identification, the stays of 21 are unaccounted for.