2018 POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremony
Event Date
09/21/2018
Event Time12:30 pm;
Location
Bergen County Plaza
1 Bergen County
Hackensack, NJ
Please join us as we honor another Bergen County POW veteran from Fair Lawn.
Anthony N. Iannarelli was born on March 4, 1916 in Elkhart, Indiana. Iannarelli entered the Navy and was a Pharmacist Mate 2nd Class assigned to an attachment of Marines on the Island of Guam. Two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor the Japanese invaded Guam, where Iannarelli and the others became American’s first WWII POWs. The prisoners were transferred to Japan and for nearly four years Iannarelli survived long days of hard labor, near starvation and the brutality of his captors. Fluent in Japanese, Iannarelli often acted the intermediary between the Japanese guards and other POWs, frequently earning Iannarelli the guards’ wrath and severe beatings, which resulted in his subsequently receiving two Purple Hearts for the injuries he sustained on separate occasions. After the war, he and his fellow survivors returned to the United States where Iannarelli later met a navy nurse, Jean Colucci from Jersey City. The two married on May 15, 1947 and purchased a home in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Two years later the Navy transferred Iannarelli back to Japan so his language skills could be put to use. After another four years Iannarelli returned to NJ, where he completed 20 years of Navy service, in addition to another 10 years in the Naval Reserve, retiring as a Chief Petty Officer First Class. Iannarelli remained a resident of Bergen County the rest of his days, passing away on January 2, 1990, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
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