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KINGS
POINT
LINKS
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DANTE L. POLCARI
Dante L. Polcari was one of those one hundred forty two midshipmen who
died for our country during World War II. Not
yet graduated from Kings Point, Dante went out to sea like so many underclass
Kings Pointers do every year. However,
Dante never came back to Kings Point to graduate.
As a deck cadet aboard the SS Saint Mithiel, Dante died on April
9, 1945. While en route, on her
maiden voyage, to Cherbourg, France from Corpus Christi, Texas via New York the Saint
Mithiel collided with the tanker SS Nashbulk at 1800 on April 9, 1945
in North Atlantic. Carrying a cargo
of gasoline, the Saint Mithiel immediately burst into flames after the
collision. Out of the fifty
merchant crew and twenty-nine Naval Armed Guard, twenty-seven crewmembers and
ten Navy men lost their lives. Unfortunately,
only one deck officer survived the blaze, but it wasn’t Dante.
The Saint Mithiel was reboarded after the fire was extinguished
and proceeded back to New York. However,
the Saint Mithiel, like this Kings Pointer, was declared a loss.
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