Last to Die

by Stephen Harding

  In the first scenario the Allies would have resumed the atomic bombing of Japanese cities—as additional weapons became available—and continued the use of nuclear weapons until whatever government was then in power ultimately chose to surrender. This would have resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Japanese; the certain obliteration of Tokyo and other key metropolitan areas; and persistent radiation that would have produced horrific environmental and health effects both in Japan and likely throughout Asia and the Pacific for decades following the eventual end of the war.

  The second scenario, though perhaps less apocalyptic, would have been disastrous nonetheless. If the United States had been unable to produce the number of atomic weapons required to bomb Japan into submission, the Allies would have been forced to go ahead with Downfall, the planned two-part invasion of the Home Islands. Operation Olympic would have kicked off in the fall of 1945 to subdue the southern part of Kyushu, followed in the spring of 1946 by Operation Coronet, the invasion of the Kanto Plain. Allied planners predicted that the Japanese defense would be both fanatical and prolonged, and based on the casualty rates for the invasion of Okinawa, predicted that the total number of Allied dead and wounded for both parts of Downfall could easily top 700,000. That number did not include the Japanese civilians and military personnel who would also be killed or injured.

  In the end, of course, neither of these truly dreadful sequences of events played out. The Japanese surrendered; MacArthur effectively became the defeated nation’s “American Caesar” and established the foundations for Japan’s rebirth as a democratic society; and the men who took part in the last two Army Air Forces combat missions of World War II ultimately went home to live out the rest of their lives.

  All but one.

  THE CROWD OF PEOPLE that surrounded John Anderson’s damaged Dominator upon its return to Yontan from the ill-fated August 18 mission included journalists from a number of civilian news organizations. Among them were Frank L. Kluckhohn, a star foreign correspondent for the New York Times who would later become the first American reporter to interview Emperor Hirohito; Sam Kinch of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; and staff writers from the two then-dominant American news agencies, United Press and Associated Press. The newsmen watched intently as medics gingerly removed Jimmy Smart, Joe Lacharite, and Tony Marchione’s body from 578. All three airmen were strapped to stretchers and then loaded aboard waiting vehicles of the Army’s 556th Ambulance Company, Smart and Lacharite in one and Marchione in another. When the ambulances roared off, the reporters descended on John Anderson and his remaining crewmen, bombarding them with questions about the attack. Before the bewildered aviators could respond, however, they were hustled off for an in-depth debriefing. Two hours later the crewmen reappeared and, under the watchful eyes of Frank Cook and other senior officers, began answering the impatient reporters’ questions.1

  Though Anderson and the others withheld the details of Lacharite’s wounding and Marchione’s death—and, of course, operational information such as the targets they had been assigned to photograph—they were fairly candid in their responses to less sensitive questions and talked at some length. They were quick to credit Tom Robinson, the navigator, for the first-aid he provided to Jimmy Smart and Joe Lacharite, and were more than happy to give dramatic accounts of the aerial battle that emphasized their claims of enemy aircraft damaged and destroyed.2 The nature and timing of the incident—coming just days after the ceasefire had supposedly gone into effect and less than twenty-four hours after the August 17 attack, which had also been reported in stateside newspapers—as well as the fact that an American airman had been killed and two others wounded, ensured that the story would be front-page news in the United States. And it didn’t take long. The UP and AP wire stories began appearing in the morning editions of major newspapers on August 18 (which was August 19 on Okinawa); Kluckhohn’s piece ran above the fold on the front page of the New York Times the next day.3

  All of the stories about the August 18 attack that appeared in U.S. newspapers mentioned the names of Anderson and Robinson and repeated the claims of enemy aircraft shot down by Houston and Smart, but the identities of the casualties were not revealed. This was intentional, of course, because Army regulations forbade the release of the names of wounded or deceased personnel until after their next of kin had been notified.

  In the case of the two wounded airmen the notification would not be made until after physicians had been able to fully evaluate each man’s condition. That evaluation was made less than a mile southeast of Yontan’s main runway, at the 381st Station Hospital. The facility’s 500 beds were divided among more than 100 tents and small wooden buildings erected by the 801st Engineer Aviation Battalion in the weeks following the initial invasion of Okinawa. Upon arrival by ambulance from Yontan, Jimmy Smart and Joe Lacharite were hustled into the hospital’s emergency triage area. Doctors quickly determined that Smart’s head wounds were not as serious as they first appeared and would require only stitches, not surgery. Lacharite, on the other hand, had severe wounds to both legs and would require months of hospitalization followed by physical therapy. And despite their injuries the two young men were, of course, the lucky ones.4

  THE AMBULANCE CARRYING Jimmy Smart and Joe Lacharite had driven straight to the low wooden building that served as the 381st’s emergency room; the vehicle bearing Tony Marchione’s body had gone a few hundred yards farther before pulling under a portico attached to a different structure. Though externally similar to the hospital’s other buildings, the edifice did not house medical personnel dedicated to saving lives. It was part of a compound operated by the 3063rd Quartermaster Graves Registration Company, whose members were tasked with caring for the dead.

  Though Tony had died very soon after being hit and hours before 578 landed at Yontan, the medic who had ridden with his body from the airfield had done a quick and thorough examination of his wounds. By the time the ambulance arrived at the 3063rd’s compound the soldier had already signed the form that officially pronounced the young airman dead. This finding was confirmed by the enlisted mortician on duty, who then added his signature to the form already signed by the medic and thereby took formal possession of Tony’s body.

  As its designation implies, the 3063rd’s ultimate purpose was to oversee the interment of U.S. Army personnel who died on Okinawa, and it and a sister unit, the 3008th, had detachments all over the island. By June 1945 there were eight temporary cemeteries on Okinawa, the largest of which had been established in April by the garrison force formed to manage post-invasion administrative and logistical operations, Island Command Okinawa. Located on the island’s west coast, seven miles southwest of Yontan, it was the designated resting place for Army Air Forces personnel and it was there that Tony Marchione was destined to be interred.5

  But several things had to happen before that burial could take place, the first of which was the positive identification of Tony’s body. This may seem in hindsight to be an unnecessary step, given that Kurt Rupke had identified him to the medics before the ambulance left Yontan and his death had been officially confirmed, but it was required by regulation. The 3063rd mortician first checked the name, Army serial number, blood type, and religion stamped on the two dogtags hanging next to the crucifix on a light silver chain around the body’s neck, verifying that they were indeed Tony’s. The technician then fingerprinted the body, and a forensic dentist checked the teeth to ensure that they matched those on the dental records in Tony’s personnel file—a copy of which had been obtained from the 20th Recon Squadron.6

  Once the body was considered positively identified, the mortician and his assistant went through the pockets of the flight suit, removing Tony’s wallet and other items, then took off the necklace bearing his crucifix and dogtags. The men next cut away and discarded Tony’s torn and bloodied clothing, recorded the nature and exact location of his wounds, and washed the body before wrapping it in the shelter half in which it would be bur
ied.7 The technicians then placed the corpse on a gurney and moved it into an adjoining building that served as the 3063rd’s morgue. Despite the fact that fighting had officially ended on Okinawa some two months earlier, Tony’s was not the only body in the storage area; in war zones military personnel die from a range of causes other than hostile action. At that time the graves registration unit was processing the corpses of men killed in automobile and aircraft accidents,8 by the various tropical diseases endemic to the Ryukyu Islands, and, in older personnel, by such “peacetime” causes as heart attack and stroke.

  Owing to limited refrigerated space for the storage of bodies, the 3063rd performed interments as soon as possible. The commanders of the 20th Recon Squadron and 386th Bomb Group were therefore notified early on the morning of August 19 that Tony’s burial would take place that afternoon at 3 P.M. A hastily convened Roman Catholic funeral Mass conducted in the main chapel at Yontan before the burial drew some thirty of Tony’s friends, as well as senior officers from the 20th Recon Squadron and its parent organization, the 6th Photographic Group; the 386th Bomb Squadron and 312th Bomb Group; and V Bomber Command. Following the service Tony was laid to rest in the Island Command Cemetery—Plot 2, Row 1, Grave 4—between Technician Fifth Grade Roland Griffin and First Sergeant Francis T. McLaughlin.

  The burial was not the end of the process, of course. On the day following the interment the 20th Recon Squadron’s commander appointed Bob Essig to be the Summary Courts Officer for Tony’s case, a position that made the pilot responsible for inventorying the young gunner’s property and effects. Over the following six days Essig turned in all government-issued items and gathered personal materials for eventual shipment to Tony’s family. The latter category included uniform shirts and pants, some civilian clothing and shoes, toiletries, souvenirs from Tony’s time in the Philippines, and a watch and several rings. Not surprisingly, the young gunner’s footlocker also held eighty-five letters and postcards he’d received from family and friends, as well as seventy-five black-and-white photos—some of relatives, others of his crewmates and the aircraft in which he’d flown. When Essig finished the inventory on August 26 he placed all the personal items in a single large cardboard box and turned it over to the 3063rd for onward shipment to the Army Effects Bureau in Kansas City, Missouri, the central clearing house for the personal property of deceased World War II soldiers.

  The graves registration company’s acceptance of Tony’s personal effects triggered what was arguably the saddest aspect of the official process that followed the young man’s death—the notification of his family. The Memorial Affairs Division of the Office of the Quartermaster General and the Casualty Affairs Branch in the War Department’s Adjutant General’s Office, both in Washington, received the 3063rd’s notification of Tony’s “Killed in Action” status on August 28. The following morning a special delivery telegram was dispatched to Ralph Marchione at the King Street home address, its opening words the stuff of every parent’s nightmares: “We deeply regret to inform you …”

  PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN’S August 149 announcement that Japan had accepted the Allied surrender terms had sparked joyous celebrations across America. In Pottstown the news was greeted with a spontaneous parade through the center of town, and crowds of people cheering and waving flags gathered in front of City Hall. In the Marchione household the special radio bulletin was met with joy and tears of relief, and Ralph, Emelia, and the two girls went out to join the neighbors who were already dancing in the street. Over the following days the family waited expectantly for a letter from Tony that would announce the date of his homecoming, but nothing came.10

  Though news agency reports of the August 17 and 18 attacks on the Dominators over Tokyo had run in the Pottstown Mercury and other local papers, they didn’t arouse any concern for the Marchiones because they knew Tony was a crewman on an F-7, not a B-32, and because the unidentified crewman killed on the eighteenth was referred to as a photographer and not as an aerial gunner. The fact that no one in the family had received a letter from him since the one to Gerry dated August 17 also did not disturb them, because they assumed that Tony and all the other members of his unit were extremely busy making preparations to take part in the imminent occupation of Japan.

  Just after noon on Wednesday the twenty-ninth, eighteen-year-old Terry Marchione got up from her desk in the front office of the Pottstown Manufacturing Company on South Hanover Street near the Schuylkill River and walked into the ladies’ room for a cigarette break. She had not even lit up when one of her female coworkers came in and told her that their supervisor wanted to see her right away. When Terry walked into the man’s office he said she had to go home immediately, but would not tell her why. She gathered up her things and hurried off on foot for King Street, several blocks to the north.

  Across town, at the Sunnybrook community swimming pool, thirteen-year-old Gerry Marchione was spending time with several neighborhood friends when the mother of one of the girls arrived and said, “you have to go home, your Mom wants you.” The woman gave no reason, but quickly bundled the teens into her car and drove them toward King Street. Gerry thought it odd that the woman let her off a block from the house yet kept the other girls in the car, but she forgot about it as soon as she saw the crowd of people gathered in front of her home. Gerry started running, and as she got closer she heard a heart-wrenching keening that she knew immediately was the sound of her mother screaming. Dashing up the few steps of the house’s front stoop she burst into the living room, where she found her father and Terry, both sobbing and tightly hugging a nearly hysterical Emelia.

  Her mother had been working in the kitchen, preparing lunch for Ralph, when the ring of the bell had drawn her to the front door. She opened it to find a young telegram-delivery boy standing there, his eyes downcast and a small envelope held tightly in his outstretched hand. Having already been the bearer of horrible news on more than one occasion, as soon as the boy had handed Emelia the telegram he turned, leapt onto his bicycle, and quickly pedaled away. Bewildered by the youth’s abrupt departure but already beginning to realize that her entire world was about to change, Emelia tore open the envelope, read the dreadful words it contained and screamed. The sound brought Ralph running from the kitchen; he, too, read the lines that told him his only son was gone forever, and sobbed uncontrollably as he enfolded his wife in his arms. The sound of their grieving brought neighbors to the still-open door, and within minutes the news had traveled the length of King Street. At Ralph’s urging a friend called Terry’s boss, the neighbor woman went to pick up Gerry, and another man ran the few blocks to the nearby St. Aloysius parish church to summon a priest.

  For all its tragic import, the War Department telegram was brief to the point of terseness. It said that Tony had been killed in action on August 18, but provided no details as to where or how and did not say that his body had already been interred on Okinawa. The final line expressed the deep sympathy of the official sender—Major General Edward F. Whitsell, the Acting Adjutant General of the Army—and said that an explanatory letter was en route. That letter arrived by special delivery on Friday, August 31, and added a few additional details. Tony had died in the performance of his duties, it read, and before his own death had provided first aid that helped save the life of a seriously wounded fellow crewmember. The letter added that Tony’s personal effects would be returned after processing, and closed by saying that the Memorial Affairs Branch of the Office of the Quartermaster General would be contacting the Marchiones in due course. Again, the official signature block bore Whitsell’s name.

  It was in an early September letter from Memorial Affairs that Ralph and Emelia learned their son had been buried on Okinawa. Like many relatives of service members killed on distant fronts in World War II, they were shocked and extremely dismayed by the revelation that their loved one had been interred far from home. Their despair was somewhat relieved when they were told that Tony’s burial in the Island Command Cemetery was consid
ered “temporary,” and that his remains would ultimately be transferred to “an appropriate location.” No mention was made of where or when that might be, however.

  In the weeks following the Marchiones’ receipt of the official notification of Tony’s death, letters from his friends filled in some of the details that the Army was unable or unwilling to provide. A letter to Terry written on September 6 by Frank Pallone was especially informative, if not entirely accurate:

  Dear Terry,

  I thought I’ll [sic] take the liberty of writing you and telling the way in which your brother died. Being a real close friend and a member of his crew, I know that Tony would have done the same for me.

  The last day he flew on August 18th, he flew with a B-32 crew from another outfit … on a mission over Tokio. Over the target fourteen Jap fighters came in on their ship. The first fighter that attacked, machined [sic] gunned one of the other gunners and hit him in the legs. Tony came to his aid with two tourniquets and stopped the bleeding in the gunners both legs. As [Tony] was leaning over the wounded fellow trying to comfort him another fighter attacked and hit Tony, he was killed instantly and he suffered no pain. The fellow who Tony treated was saved by his aid, and wishes to thank you for Tony.