Tuesday tear jerker

S/Sgt Mario “Motts” Tonelli

Jeff LPH 3 forwarded this Military Times article about the above-pictured Staff Sergeant Mario Tonelli. Grab a box of tissues.

Tonelli was a Notre Dame running back who scored the season ending touchdown on a 77-yard drive in 1937. Three years later he, like many of his generation joined the service. He was stationed at Luzon when the Japanese started their attack on America with Pearl Harbor and hours later the Philippines.

Tonelli and his comrades ultimately ended up as prisoners of the Japanese at Bataan and were forced on a 60-mile walk with no food or water. Surviving the Bataan Death March, he was robbed of his Notre Dame class ring. A Japanese officer, recognized him from that game winning TD, and returned to him his ring. Which he wore for the remainder of the war and to his death at age 86.

I’m summarizing an excellent article, so go straight to the source. Aside from the honor among enemies displayed by that lone Japanese officer (an enormous rarity in that theater of the war) tugging at the heartstrings is how word got to Tonelli and his fellow prisoners.

With American forces closing in on mainland Japan, Tonelli began seeing American planes flying overhead daily.

“One day, a plane flew in close to the prison and dropped a carton of cigarettes that had a handkerchief tied on as a parachute,” according to the National Museum of the Army.

“Writing scribbled on the parachute read, ‘Hostilities have ceased. Will see you soon.’”

After 1,236 days as a prisoner of war, Tonelli, weighing just 98 pounds, was liberated.

More than five years of torture, the relief of getting that note must have been unimaginable.

Category: Army, Guest Link, Historical, POW, We Remember