Born: September 24, 1922
Died: May 19, 1995
Campaigns Served: Namur, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima (wounded)
Highest Rank Attained: Corporal
Decorations:
Purple Heart
Robert DeNunzio enlisted in the Marines in late 1942. He attended boot camp at Parris Island, and became a member of Company C, First Separate Battalion (Reinforced). They traveled to Camp Pendleton, California, where DeNunzio trained as a machine gunner, and qualified as a rifle marksman and bayonet expert. In August, 1943, his battalion became part of the 24th Marine Regiment.
PFC DeNunzio served as a gunner with Charlie Company's weapons platoon in the battle of Namur. In the spring of 1944, when the company was reorganized, he was promoted to corporal and made a squad leader with the machine gun platoon.
DeNunzio led his squad through the battles of Saipan and Tinian, and trained them up for the invasion of Iwo Jima. On February 22, he and close friend Mike Mervosh were caught in a heavy bombardment; they jumped into a nearby hole for cover. Shells rained down around them, and eventually one scored a lucky hit. Mervosh, the only unwounded man in the hole, recalled the scene years later:
I don't know how long I was out, hours, minutes. I heard ringing and I heard angels singing, I thought I was dead but I opened my eyes and I'm alive. As soon as I opened my eyes I see this Marine right in front of me, DeNunzio. He's got a big gash on the back of his head, and just on instinct I ripped open his first aid packet and grabbed the sulfa powder, put it on the wound and bandaged him.... After the blast, I couldn't hear anything. I picked up old DeNunzio, got him back a couple hundred yards and that's when corpsmen picked him up with stretchers and evacuated him. I figured DeNunzio was dead, died aboard ship.
- Mike Mervosh, quoted in Gail Chatfield, "By Dammit, We're Marines!"
Robert DeNunzio clung to life, however. He was taken by ship to a hospital on Saipan, and then on to a Navy hosptial at Pearl Harbor. On April 1, 1945, he returned to the States. DeNunzio completed his tour of duty at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and was honorably discharged on November 3, 1945.
Photo from the WWII Memorial Registry.
DeNunzio married Laura McLeod in 1946; they raised three children as DeNunzio worke as a metallurgist. He attended a division reunion in Baltimore, where he ran into an old friend:
"Thank God you made Iwo," he said.
"Thank God you made it out!" I said, and twisted him around to look at the back of his head. "That's a pretty nice scar." He was bald-like, you know.
"Mike, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be here."
"If it wasn't for those by damn Marines on Iwo Jima, I wouldn't be here!"- Mike Mervosh, quoted in Gail Chatfield, "By Dammit, We're Marines!"
Robert DeNunzio died in Warren, Ohio, in 1995.