The Last US Casualty of WW2

[syscom3]

Here's a great write up of the aerial encounter over Tokyo in which the last US casualty of WW2 happened.

Its several pages long, so click on the link.

The Last to Die | Military Aviation | Air Space Magazine

Just after 2 p.m. on August 18, 1945, U.S. Army Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione bled to death in the clear, bright sky above Tokyo. A month shy of his 20th birthday, Marchione died like so many before him had in the Second World War—quietly, cradled in the arms of a buddy. What sets his death apart from that of other Allied airmen is that the young man from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, died after the Japanese had accepted the Allied terms of surrender. He was the last American killed in air combat in World War II.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Hell of an honor, interesting post sys!

 

[Shinpachi]

It sounds as tragic as the last Kamikaze which was carried out after the Emperor's statement for surrender.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Great read. Thanks for this.

MM

 

[diddyriddick]

Hell of an honor, interesting post sys!

+1

 

[syscom3]

It sounds as tragic as the last Kamikaze which was carried out after the Emperor's statement for surrender.

Admiral Ugaki?

 

[Capt. Vick]

I guess the B-32's only claim to fame...

 

[Shinpachi]

Admiral Ugaki?

Yes, Ugaki the moron.

 

[Shinpachi]

Ugaki was moron because -

he was in the position to teach his men, all young pilots of around twenty, to survive for themselves and the future of their nation as the war was over.
If he thought he had to die to take his responsibility for the Kamikaze tactics, he had other fair ways, like harakiri, to do so by himself.

To the worse, in case of 2nd Lt. Shoichi Ohta who invented and suggested the suicide attack by infamous 'Ohka' - a human flying bomb, he flew a trainer without permission three days later the war was over. He kept flying aimlessly on the Pacific. He would have been going to die and was regarded as MIA finally. Pension was paid to his family.

However, a researcher found him who was almost dying of cancer at a hospital in Kyoto fifty years later.
He had been rescued by a fisherman and survived the rest of his life with a false name.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione

 

[KevinK.]

Very touching story, but raises the question. Of why didn't US Army Command send up fighter cover? Or would fighters have violated terms of the Cease Fire?

 

[syscom3]

Very touching story, but raises the question. Of why didn't US Army Command send up fighter cover? Or would fighters have violated terms of the Cease Fire?

At that point in the war, Japanese fighter interception was rare. Who would have thought that after they announced the surrender, they would have an armed attack?

 

[parsifal]

any idea who shot him?