Morincelli, Edo, MM2c

Petty Officer Second Class Edo Morincelli was Killed in Action on December 7, 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  He was stationed on board the USS Helena CL-50.

Machinist Mate Second Class Edo Morincelli, #2386113
 
Edo Morincelli was born in Schenectady, New York on January 7, 1919. His father, Alexander, is the sole family member whose name appears on naval casualty records. Other civilian records are unavailable to this researcher. Thus, time and circumstances have obscured much of Edo’s life before his death at Pearl Harbor. His sacrifice and service remain honored and recognized, providing America with a second chance to enjoy its freedoms in the 21st century.
 
Less than a year before Edo’s birth, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending the World War I. Known as The Great War, it claimed 40 million civilian and military casualties. Though 1918 brought peace, death dogged the world as the Spanish influenza pandemic erupted. When the pandemic ended two years later, 50 million people were dead worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States.
 
The world’s woes eased during the 1920s, a decade of prosperity, industrial expansion and social change. But flush times evaporated in 1929 when the U.S. stock market collapsed, setting off a chain reaction of global financial crises that did not abate until 1939-1940.
 
Edo enlisted in the United States Navy on June 21, 1939.  His country and the world were seeing the light at the end of the Great Depression’s long, dark tunnel of misery and despair. Like millions of Americans, Morencilli was aware of Europe’s changing political face.
 
In September 1939, Germany’s Wehrmacht had invaded Poland. By the fall of 1940, Hitler’s Blitzkrieg overran Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Low Countries and Scandinavia. Italy, under Mussolini, aligned with Germany. Most significantly, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in September, bonding Japan with the Nazi dictator and his Axis allies.
 
Americans maintained a stiff isolationist stance against involvement in another global war, regarding Hitler as a European problem. But Japan’s aggressive actions paralleled those of Germany in regard to its desire to become a world power. From 1931-1940, Japan invaded and occupied Northeast China and French Indo-China, demonstrating its established imperialist overreach for raw reserves, food and labor. Japan’s political and military actions signaled a coming event that stunned the world and changed the course of history.
 
As a Machinist’s Mate Second Class, Morincelli was stationed aboard the USS Helena (CL-50.) The Helena was a Brooklyn-Class light cruiser, the ninth and final ship within that class. Following its commissioning, the Helena took part in various exercises and deployments before being assigned to the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii in 1940. Aboard his ship, Edo Morincelli would become a casualty of a pivotal, history-changing event.
 
During 1941, Japan and the United States maintained an uneasy relationship that devolved into resigned anticipation of certain conflict. For weeks, U.S. citizens followed daily newspaper reports as negotiations seesawed between the two nations. Neither the American government nor its citizens pinpointed Hawaii as the flashpoint for the next four years’ war.
 
On December 6, President Roosevelt made a direct appeal to Emperor Hirohito, urging the aversion of war between their two nations. As the country awaited the outcome of the diplomatic petition, enemy naval and air forces were gathered less than 300 miles north of Oahu. Six Japanese carriers, with cruisers and destroyers were positioned to strike the Hawaiian harbor. The carriers held 420 attack aircraft, fueled and loaded with bombs and torpedoes.
 
MM2C Morincelli, stationed in the Helena’s engine room, was charged with operation, maintenance and repair of engines, turbines, pumps and drainage systems. Like Morincelli, every enlisted sailor had daily routines, chores that were done to keep the ship in top operating order. After wake-up call, bunks were stowed, and the crew readied for the day. By 0800 hours, the crew would assemble in the mess for breakfast. The crew’s structured schedules ended around 1750 hours or rotated for night watches. In late 1941, catastrophe fell, not in shadowy darkness, but in the coming day’s bright, early hours.
 
On December 7, the ships’ crews prepared for Sunday’s activities. Around the harbor, ninety-six ships were moored. Over the surrounding mountains, scattered clouds were breezed and broken by a ten knot wind. Cumulus puffs concealed the approaching Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, moving in waves from the north against the unsuspected fleet.  At 0755, planes bearing a red disc festooned with rays of the Rising Sun dove on American ships and their crews.  Suddenly, shockingly, Pearl Harbor was under attack.
 
General Quarters! This is not a Drill!
 
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the light cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) was in the berth that the USS Pennsylvania usually occupied. Because of this, she became a target of the Japanese. A torpedo hit on her starboard side. She began to flood but her crew managed to get it under control. This allowed for a generator to power her gun mounts. The men aboard the Helena fought back. When the attack was over, 34 men died aboard the Helena.  
 
Killed in action by the torpedo explosion, MM2C Edo Morincelli was among the 34 crew who died on December 7. Awarded the Purple Heart posthumously, he was interred at the Hawala Cemetery on Oahu until the war’s end.  Edo Morincelli was laid to final rest at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California on January 25, 1949.
 
This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen serviceperson’s name and read his/her story.
 
Stories Behind the Stars Contributing Author: Pamela C. Baker
 
References:
 
Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1920 United States Federal Census.
Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1930 United States Federal Census.
Ancestryinstitutions.org. 1940 United States Federal Census.
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S., National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, (Punchbowl) 1941-2011.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
U.S., National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962.
U.S., World War II Navy, Marine and Coast Guard Casualties, 1941-1945.
U.S., World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949.