Nearly 80 years after Bob Persichitti watched Marines raise an American flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima, the 102-year-old Navy veteran was headed to Normandy to commemorate another major World War II assault.
But Persichitti suffered a medical emergency just days before the D-Day ceremony in France, was flown from a ship by helicopter and died at a military hospital in Germany, Honor Flight Rochester President and CEO Richard Stewart told The Washington Post.
“Bob was one that really did it right,” Stewart said.
Persichitti was born in a Pennsylvania coal mining town in 1922 to parents who had emigrated from Italy and had 11 children, according to his 2015 autobiography “Bob’s Book: Building an American Life.” After graduating from high school, Persichitti joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program to employ young adults to improve the country’s public lands, forests and parks.
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Persichitti enlisted in the Navy in 1942, the year after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He trained as a radioman for a year in New York City and then shipped out to the Pacific theater, where he served aboard the USS Eldorado, an amphibious force command ship, during battles in Guam and Japan, specifically on Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
At one point in his deployment, a Japanese kamikaze pilot strafed the Eldorado before crashing into a neighboring ship, causing hundreds of casualties, Stewart said. Another memorable moment of Persichitti’s service: While he worked in the cramped radio room on board, he heard Navajo Code Talkers speaking their native language, which was used to confuse the Japanese, Stewart added.
And during the Battle of Iwo Jima, a fellow sailor aboard the Eldorado implored Persichitti to look through binoculars at something in the distance, Stewart said. When Persichitti obliged, he saw several Marines lifting the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, a scene that would become one of the most iconic images in American history.
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“Bob was right there when all this stuff was happening,” Stewart said.
After retiring from the Navy in 1945, Persichitti spent decades working as a carpenter and then as a wood shop teacher at public schools in Rochester, N.Y., according to his autobiography. His wife, Elgina, died in 2012 at 88. They were married for 64 years.
Persichitti stayed involved with fellow veterans, especially in his later years, Stewart said. He was active in the local post of the American Legion, he went to most or all reunions of the Eldorado crew, and in 2013, he flew to Washington, where he toured the World War II Memorial, courtesy of Honor Flight Rochester — one of about 130 Honor Flight Network nonprofits around the country that send veterans to the nation’s capital for “a day of honor.”
Persichitti’s Honor Flight caught the eye of Al DeCarlo, an American history teacher at Pittsford Mendon High School in a Rochester suburb. DeCarlo encouraged his students to write to Persichitti, beginning a decade-long friendship in which Persichitti regularly visited DeCarlo’s classes to talk about his life and World War II service.
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“The students have firsthand access to a rare and historical gift,” according to a New York Senate Veterans Hall of Fame profile of Persichitti. He was inducted into that hall of fame in 2020.
Persichitti stayed involved with Honor Flight Rochester after his trip, Stewart said. Over the past decade, he welcomed other veterans back to the area when they’ve returned from D.C. Even at 102, he was there in April and May when the organization concluded its first two trips of the year, shaking veterans’ hands and welcoming them home. He planned to do the same for the third trip, on Father’s Day, and for three more that the organization has scheduled in the fall.
“He was making sure the full community was showing their best for the veterans, just like the community did for him,” Stewart said.
Hours after President Biden spoke in Normandy on Thursday about how Persichitti’s “generation, in their hour of trial … did their duty,” Stewart said the hardest part about leading a nonprofit focused on making sure older veterans get to see the memorials that honor them is realizing how wonderful they are and then having to grieve their death.
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That’s certainly the case with Persichitti, Stewart said. But, although he was sad about losing his friend, Stewart said he’s happy he got the chance to know such a warm and caring person who was “the type of guy you always wanted to have around” — one who even in his 90s didn’t hesitate to pick up a club and play some golf to support Honor Flight Rochester’s tournament fundraiser.
Persichitti was well cared for before he died last week and, as a “pre-rock and roll” Italian guy, got to listen to some of his favorite music — Frank Sinatra, Stewart said.
“We miss him,” Stewart said, choking up. “We miss you, Bob.”
