Valor Friday

Captain Willibald Bianchi

The earthly remains of US Army Captain Willibald Bianchi have been identified more than 80 years after he died. Bianchi is notable for having received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Bataan in 1942. Bianchi died three years later, after surviving unimaginable horrors before he was able to receive the award.

Military Times (by way of Yahoo!) has the story;

The remains of Medal of Honor recipient U.S. Army Capt. Willibald Bianchi have been identified, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday.

Bianchi was killed on Jan. 9, 1945, after U.S. naval aircraft, unaware that there were prisoners on board, scored a direct hit on the Japanese transport ship (dubbed “hell ships” by American POWs), Enoura Maru, in Takao Harbor. An estimated 431 “unknowns” were killed in the sinking, according to Hegseth.

“During one of the most harrowing chapters of World War II, Willibald Bianchi demonstrated remarkable bravery, valor, and selflessness,” National Medal of Honor Museum President and CEO Chris Cassidy said in a press release. “Eighty years after he was killed, we are grateful for the work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to account for Captain Bianchi and finally bring him home. At the National Medal of Honor Museum, his legacy of service and sacrifice will be preserved and shared for generations to come.”

Sent to the Philippines in April 1941 to serve with the 45th Infantry and the Philippine Scouts, the Minnesota native was among the very first Americans to see combat in the Second World War.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese swept the Philippines, where, retreating into the jungle, Bianchi and his comrades continued their fight against Japanese forces despite a rapidly dwindling supply of food, medicine and ammunition.

Cornered on the island, Bianchi nonetheless volunteered to lead the attack to wipe out enemy machine gun nests in the Tuol River pocket on West Bataan on Feb. 3, 1942.

According to the Department of Defense, Bianchi was shot twice through the left hand but refused to stop for aid — tossing his rifle aside and shooting from his pistol instead. As he rushed toward the Japanese machine gun nest, Bianchi silenced it by tossing grenades.

The danger was not over, however.

Bianchi was shot twice more in the chest, but the indefatigable soldier refused to stop. Clambering aboard a U.S. tank, Bianchi took command of its anti-aircraft machine gun and blasted the second enemy machine gun position. He was subsequently shot again and knocked off the tank. It was only then that Bianchi came to a rest.

The soldier took just one month to recuperate before rejoining his men — this time as a captain.

On April 9, 1942, with no choice but to capitulate, Bianchi, alongside some 9,700 Americans and their 66,300 Filipino allies, surrendered to the Japanese. The already weakened or sick Allied soldiers were forced to trek 60-plus miles with little food or water, enduring what was later termed the Bataan Death March.

“[The] Japanese executed anyone who broke formation or couldn’t keep up and casually butchered others,” according to historian Peter Duffy. “Men were left where they fell, sometimes to be run over by Japanese vehicles. During breaks, most prisoners were forced to sit in the hot sun.”

“The best estimates,” Duffy continued, “suggest that approximately 500 Americans and 2,500 Filipinos died” during the march.

Despite these horrific conditions, Bianchi endured, with many soldiers crediting him with moving through the ranks of desperate men trying to lift their spirits and to get them to walk on.

For the duration of the war, Bianchi survived several harrowing POW camps. At each, according to the Minnesota Medal of Honor website, he took his role as caretaker seriously, bartering with the Japanese for food for his starving soldiers.

“Many servicemen wrote to Bianchi’s mother following the war, telling her that they owed their lives to her son,” according to the site.

Bianchi was transferred from the Bilibid prison in Luzon to the Japanese transport ship Oryoku Maru in December 1944, where it was sunk by American aircraft mere days later. Bianchi survived that sinking before being fatefully transferred to the Enoura Maru, where he, alongside an estimated 300 POWs, was inadvertently killed.

The soldier was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by Gen. Douglas MacArthur on June 7, 1945, for his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty” for his actions back in the Philippines.

Today, his remains have been identified as a part of DPAA’s Enoura Maru Project, which aims to identify the remains of over 928 POWs killed aboard the ships Oryoku Maru, Enoura Maru and Brazil Maru.

Now, Bianchi’s name, engraved in stone and overlaid with gold on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery, has a bronze rosette next to it, signifying that, at long last, the captain has been found.

Bianchi’s Medal of Honor citation:

Service: United States Army
Rank: First Lieutenant
Regiment: 45th Infantry Regiment
Division: Philippine Scouts
Action Date: February 3, 1942

War Department, General Orders No. 11 (March 5, 1942)

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pride in presenting the Medal of Honor (Posthumously) to First Lieutenant Willibald Charles Bianchi (ASN: 0-389009), United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy on 3 February 1942, near Bagac, Province of Bataan, Philippine Islands, while serving with the 45th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Scouts. When the rifle platoon of another company was ordered to wipe out two strong enemy machinegun nests, First Lieutenant Bianchi voluntarily and of his own initiative, advanced with the platoon leading part of the men. When wounded early in the action by two bullets through the left hand, he did not stop for first aid but discarded his rifle and began firing a pistol. He located a machinegun nest and personally silenced it with grenades. When wounded the second time by two machinegun bullets through the chest muscles, First Lieutenant Bianchi climbed to the top of an American tank, manned its anti-aircraft machinegun, and fired into strongly held enemy position until knocked completely off the tank by a third severe wound.

Welcome home, Captain Bianchi. I’m sorry it took so long. He endured the fighting retreat at Bataan, the brutal treatment of the battle’s survivors by the Japanese, several terrible Japanese PW camps, and the deplorable conditions of a Hell Ship only to die at the unwitting hands of a fellow American. If the Japanese had properly marked the ships, they would not have been targeted.

According to the Navy;

In his comprehensive study of the sources, historian Gregory F. Michno shows that by the end of the war, 134 Japanese hell ships had together embarked on more than 156 voyages, which carried an estimated 126,000 Allied prisoners of war.

Approximately 1,540 Allied POW deaths resulted from conditions in the holds and violence aboard hell ships, whereas more than 19,000 deaths came as a consequence of Allied attacks. The U.S. Navy carried out most of these attacks but with the help of Allied intelligence services and the Royal Navy’s Far East patrols. On 18 September 1944, for example, a British submarine torpedoed and sank the Japanese hell ship Junyo Maru. Nearly 6,000 people died: 4,120 Javanese laborers and 1,520 Allied POWs.

To add a teensy bit more tragedy, the Hell Ship that Bianchi was killed on, Enoura Maru, was the final Hell Ship sunk by the Allies during the war.

Category: Army, Historical, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember, WWII