A World Warfare II Navy veteran was being mourned Thursday following his loss of life whereas en path to France to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, a visit buddies stated he’d talked excitedly about making.
Robert “Al” Persichitti of Fairport, New York fell sick throughout a cease in Germany final week and died in a hospital, his longtime priest and buddy, the Rev. William Leone, stated. Persichitti was 102.
“He’s been to many of the World Warfare II remembrances down in Washington and Louisiana, and he wished to get to the D-Day remembrance ceremony, too,” Leone, pastor of the Church of Saint Jerome in East Rochester, the place Persichitti attended Mass each week, stated by telephone. “However the Lord took him in Germany. He was on his technique to France, however he didn’t make it.”
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A buddy who was touring with Persichitti stated a health care provider was with him when he died on Could 30. “She put his favourite singer, Frank Sinatra, on her telephone and he peacefully left us,” Al DeCarlo instructed WHAM in Rochester.
The Nationwide WWII Museum in New Orleans known as Persichitti a “longtime buddy.”
After enlisting within the U.S. Navy in 1942, Persichitti was assigned as a radioman to the united statesEldorado and in 1944 sailed to the Pacific the place he took half within the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, in keeping with the museum. He was within the harbor at Iwo Jima to witness the elevating of the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, and had returned there in 2019, simply earlier than his 97th birthday.
In an interview with WROC in Rochester earlier than he left for Europe, Persichitti stated he’d been in his heart specialist’s workplace when he realized in regards to the journey.
“And he says, `Go!’” he recalled his physician telling him.
“I am actually excited to be going,” he stated.
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A retired public faculty trainer, Persichitti recurrently spoke about his wartime experiences in faculties and neighborhood gatherings, Leone stated. He additionally wrote an autobiography for his household in 2015.
Persichitti led the Pledge of Allegiance at this yr’s Memorial Day remembrance in East Rochester.
“He wished,” Leone stated, “to maintain the reminiscence of the sacrifices that had been made alive.”
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