Honoring Italian Americans on WWII Active Duty and the Home Front
By Joseph “Sonny” Scafetta, Jr
Earl Trosino (1906-2001)
Earl Trosino was the second of nine children of Angelo Michele Trosino and his wife, Domenica Rosa Bozzi. Earl was born on December 29, 1906, in Por t Deposit, Mar yland. His father had emigrated f rom the cit y of Benevento (population 58, 418 in the 2020 Census) in the province of the same name in the region of Campania. His mother had emigrated f rom the cit y of Teramo (population 54 ,338 in the 2017 Census) in the province of the same name in the region of Abruzzo. The family moved to the cit y of Chester, a suburb of Philadelphia, in 1910. Earl lef t Chester Senior High School at 16 and enrolled in the Pennsylvania Nautical School aboard the U.S.S. Annapolis stationed at the U.S. Nav y Yard in Philadelphia to study marine engineering for the U.S. Maritime Ser vice. He graduated in 1928 and married his childhood sweethear t, Lucia Bianca DiRenzo, a theater cashier. They had no children.
In 1959, Trosino became one of the first Italian Americans to achieve the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Navy
Trosino obtained his license f rom the U.S. Coast Guard as an assistant engineer in the U.S. Maritime Ser vice and applied for a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reser ve. By 1932, he had upgraded his license to chief engineer and worked for the Sun Oil Co. in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. In 1938, he was finally accepted into the U.S. Naval Reser ve and was granted a commission as a senior lieutenant. In 1939, he and his wife joined the Christopher Columbus Lodge No. 612 of the Order of the Sons (and now Daughters) of Italy in America. In June 1941, Trosino received orders to repor t for active dut y in the U.S. Nav y.
His first assignment was assistant engineering officer aboard the U.S.S. Alc yone under conversion in the Boston Naval Yard. In August 1941, his ship joined an all-nav y convoy transpor ting soldiers and supplies to Iceland. Enroute, the convoy came under at tack by a German U-boat wolf pack. There was no damage or ship loss because protective depth charges were dropped by U.S. Nav y escor t destroyers. Thus, Trosino engaged in combat action before the United States formally entered World War II in December 1941. Trosino was promoted to lieutenant commander af ter being assigned to the U.S.S. Long Island which was the first aircraf t carrier conver ted f rom a merchant ship at the Sun Ship Yard in Chester. While on board the carrier, he was injured in an explosion. Af ter he recovered, Trosino was ordered to help bring back a scuttled German luxur y liner, the S.S. Windhuk, f rom Brazil so that it could be transformed into a troop transpor t, christened the U.S.S. General Lejeune, at the Nor folk Navy Yard in Virginia.
Trosino was next assigned to the U.S.S. Guadalcanal, a new aircraf t carrier, and was promoted to full commander. While ser ving on the Guadalcanal, Trosino would engage in a harrowing encounter with a German submarine that would earn him a prestigious militar y decoration and help change the course of the war [See sidebar on page 5]. Af ter being detached f rom the U.S.S. Guadalcanal, Trosino was at tached to the U.S.S. Wasp in the Pacific f leet. It was a f ront-line fighting aircraf t carrier with about 100 planes and 3 ,000 sailors on board. Af ter the war ended in August 1945, the carrier returned to the U.S. east coast. It then took Italian prisoners of war back to Naples and picked up American soldiers to return them home. Trosino was discharged f rom active dut y in 1946, but continued to ser ve in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
In 1949, he was promoted to captain. In 1954 at the age of 47, Trosino and his wife adopted t wo orphaned half brothers f rom Italy. Later that year, Trosino escor ted the U-505 on a tow trip f rom the Por tsmouth Naval Yard in New Hampshire through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and three of the great lakes to the Museum of Science and Industr y in Chicago. The last 800 feet were traveled over land one night f rom a f loating dr y dock in Lake Michigan across a highway to the museum which had been built as the F ine Ar ts Building of the World’s Columbian E xposition in 1893. The exhibit of the U-505 is dedicated to the memor y of about 55,000 American naval ser vice personnel who went down to unmarked ocean graves helping to win victories for the United States.In Januar y 1959, Trosino was promoted to rear admiral. He was one of the first Italian Americans to achieve this high rank in the U.S. Navy.
He then retired f rom the U.S. Naval Reser ve in April 1959 at the age of 52 to live with his wife and to raise their t wo adopted sons in their home in Spring field, Pennsylvania. On Januar y 1, 1964 , he retired as chief engineer for the Sun Oil Co. His wife died in August 1992 af ter 64 years of marriage. Trosino died on December 8, 2001, three weeks shy of his 96th bir thday, in Brinton Manor Nursing Home in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. He was buried with full militar y honors in Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Cemeter y in Marple, Pennsylvania.
Sources:
Galler y, Daniel V., Clear the Decks, William Morrow & Co. (1951).
Galler y, Daniel V., Twent y Million Tons Under the Sea, Henr y Regner y Co. (1956).
Museum of Science and Industr y, The Stor y of the U-505 (1985).
Infield, Thomas, Captured -The Taking of U-505, Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, at pages 12-28 (Sunday, June 5, 1994).
Joseph Scafet ta Jr., six-hour personal inter view with Rear Admiral Earl Trosino (Retired) in his home in Spring field, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 1, 1996.
Salvatore J. LaGumina et al., The Italian-American E xperience: An Enc yclopedia, Garland Publishing, Inc. (2000).
Delaware Count y Daily T imes Obituaries, Rear Adm. Earl Trosino, 95, engineer, war hero, Tuesday, December 11, 2001.