ARM2 Andrew Piscopo was declared MIA along with his 10 fellow crewmen on 13 February 1944, when their PB4Y-1, Bu. No. 32117, went missing.
Piscopo's posthumous Purple Heart is the Type 1 split brooch made by the US Mint. The engraving, however is the block type seen on late issue medals. The group includes the short titled medal case.
Quoting from Alan Carey's "The Reluctant Raiders": "On the 13th, Lieuteant (jg) Herron and his crew, including a photographer from VD-3, borrowed Lieutenant Commander Bundy's plane and headed for Wotje for a routine search. He never returned. The day after Herron disappeared, Radio Tokyo claimed the destruction of a B-24 over Wotje on the day in question, and even read the names of the crew. However, the names she read were Lieutenant Commander Bundy's crew, which had been written on the floor of the cockpit by a member of his crew. Herron's plane must have been hit close to shore and crashed on the beach or in shallow water. The ultimate fate of Herron and his crew will never be truly known, as their bodies were never recovered. If some of the crew had survived, they would have been killed shortly after their capture." Carey's book lists all of the regular crew members of Herron's crew, and Piscopo is not listed. The obvious conclusion is that Piscopo was the man from VD-3.
On 3 January, 1944 the squadron had been transferred to O'Hare Field, Apamama in the Gilbert Islands. That is the base from which VB 109 operated when Herron's plane was shot down.
It was not until 15 January 1946 that Herron and his crew were all declared dead, which included Piscopo, who hailed from Staten Island, NY.
