World War II Medal of Honor recipient to return home for burial, 80 years after his death

By Brad Lendon, CNN

(CNN) — 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 own countrymen.

For his bravery in battle, he was given the Medal of Honor, the US military’s highest award for valor.

But Bianchi never knew of his commendation, nor would he ever see his Minnesota home again.

He would not survive a second attack 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 body was never identified, and his name was added to the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery, along with more than 37,000 others who, as the memorial says, “sleep in unknown graves.”

On Wednesday, for Bianchi, more than 80 years after his death, that status changed. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Bianchi’s remains were among some 300 sets of unknowns recovered on Taiwan in 1946.

After their discovery, those remains were transferred to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as Punchbowl, in Hawaii and buried in a grave of unknowns, according an agency press release.

Three years ago, those remains from Taiwan were disinterred and new examinations begun, leading to Bianchi’s identification in August, the agency said, adding that the results were made public on Wednesday after Bianchi’s family was fully briefed.

The war hero will get a final burial in his hometown of New Ulm, Minnesota, in May, the agency said.

It will come more than 85 years after he left the United States.

In early 1941, months before the US would enter World War II with the December 7 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bianchi requested a Philippine assignment and was sent to work with the Philippine Scouts, a US Army unit of Filipino soldiers led by American officers, according to a Defense Department account of his Medal of Honor.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they also attacked US forces in 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 where his actions would bring him a Medal of Honor commendation.

Commanding a company 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 fight kicked off, Bianchi was shot twice through the left hand, but instead of stopping for first aid, he tossed aside his rifle and began shooting with his pistol instead. When he came across the first machine gun nest, he quickly 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 recover from his wounds, and he was still on the peninsula when the American and Philippine forces, more than 70,000 men, surrendered to Japanese troops on April 9.

Bianchi and the others were marched up the peninsula to POW camps in the north under brutal conditions in a 65-mile trek infamously known as the Bataan Death March.

Untold numbers died, but as a leader Bianchi tried to keep spirits as high as he could, according to his biography on the Minnesota Medal of Honor website.

After the death march, Bianchi endured a series of POW camps before, in December 1944, he found himself on a POW ship anchored in Subic Bay, Philippines.

The Americans called these vessels “hell ships” because of the conditions aboard. Men were packed into in darkened holds with no ventilation – and temperatures well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) – so tightly there was no room to sit.

To make matters worse, the POW ships were often unmarked, their human cargo anonymous.

So Bianchi’s “hell ship” was attacked by American planes whose pilots did not know that their countrymen were aboard.

That ship sank, but Bianchi survived, and the Japanese transferred him to another prison ship that suffered a similar fate 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 website says. He was 29 years old.

Just five months later, Bianchi’s mother, Carrie Bianchi, would accept 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 website says.

Bianchi was one of 473 troops to receive the Medal of Honor for actions during World War II. With Bianchi’s identification, the remains of 21 are unaccounted for.

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