Paul J. Mignini?

Gracie Smith
MSMU Class of 2027

(5/2024) Who was Paul J. Mignini? This is an excellent question considering the United States Military Archives can’t even answer it. However, I will do my best.

Paul Mignini, born on January 25th, 1922, was an Italian-American with ambition like no other. He was the husband of Virginia Conklin and father to Paul Mignini, Jr., Carolyn Vinovich, Connie Iampieri, Edith Mignini, Victoria Unglesbee, and Mary Keeley. He was the grandfather to Jennifer and Julie Iampieri, Jamie Unglesbee, Jr., Paul J. Mignini, III, Rebecca and Matthew Smith, William and Katie Doyle, and Nick and Chris Vinovich. I, Gracie Smith, am writing to you as his great-granddaughter.

While I was just 10 months shy of meeting my great-grandfather, I hope to continue his legacy by informing you of his incredible experience during World War II. All I ever knew of my great-grandfather was that he had fought in the war, and earned a Purple Heart for his acts of bravery in saving another sailor. Nevertheless, this story never satisfied me. For years I have been curious about his time in the war and what exactly he did. I can now confidently and proudly say that I have uncovered it all.

According to the official draft papers I discovered in the depths of the internet, on June 29th, 1942, Yeoman Mignini registered to serve. He volunteered to go in place of his elder brother who was drafted so he could stay behind and provide an income for the rest of his family. It wasn’t until the fall of 1942 that his service initially began.

On October 24th, 1942, Yeoman Mignini was deployed to fight in Operation Torch: The Invasion of North Africa, led by none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. Now, what was the plan for Operation Torch? Operation Torch began on November 8th, 1942, with the landing of 107,000 British and U.S. troops at Casablanca (Western Task Force), and the Algerian cities of Algiers and Oran (Eastern Task Force). The landings signaled the beginning of the end of Axis power in North Africa. On November 5th, Eisenhower established his command post at Gibraltar, Spain, undetected by the incoming German U-boats. The primary goal was to take over all the ports in North Africa and slowly reconquer lost territory. This campaign was so successful that Eisenhower and General George Patton would then invade Sicily and later Italy.

However, Yeoman Mignini never made it to Casablanca, not in the way they planned. He sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the USS Tasker H. Bliss, a troop transport ship part of convoy UGF-1. Its route was to depart from Norfolk, Virginia, and arrive in Fedhala, Morocco on November 8th, 1942. The ship had 235 troops on board and weighed 12,568 tons. At around 18:30 hours on November 12th, five torpedoes were fired at the three ships in Yeoman Mignini’s convoy; the USS Edward Rutledge, the USS Hugh L. Scott, and the USS Tasker H. Bliss. The German submarine responsible for this was U-130, commanded by Ernst Kals. The first two ships went down almost immediately, but the USS Tasker H. Bliss remained burning in the water until around 02:30 hours the next day before it sank. At least 75 people would be killed in the attack from the three ships that went down. This would later be recognized as the Naval Battle of Casablanca.

From this attack, Yeoman Mignini had suffered oil burns in his eyes. This, however, didn’t stop him from swimming in the flaming bay with an injured soldier for eight miles to the Casablanca beach. The Baltimore Sun paper printed on December 6th, 1942 wrote about Yeoman Paul Mignini and interviewed him about his experience in the war. The paper says, "He became a soldier in a sailor’s uniform". From this, he went on to be awarded a Purple Heart Medal.

Once Yeoman Mignini had reached the African shore with the injured sailor, the army took him and began treatment for his oil-burned eyes. He lay that night in a Catholic church with other minorly wounded sailors. The next day, Yeoman Mignini traveled into the fallen city of Casablanca. He and other "ship-less" sailors were put aboard another transport ship heading back to the United States.

His mother, Cesira Mignini, was informed of the attack while Yeoman Mignini was en route home. It was a cold morning in early December when Yeoman Mignini returned to his home in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs. Cesira Mignini asked no questions, her son was home for Christmas.

This brings me to the importance of Decoration Day, more commonly known as Memorial Day. War, combat, battle, shootings, bombings, sinkings, death; nobody knows how difficult it is to speak about something if they haven’t experienced it. As my great-grandfather asked when he returned home, "Do people really know there is a war going on? Do they really know other guys aren’t so lucky and are dying?"

I never met my great-grandfather. My family told me stories about him, but no one quite knew what he did in the war other than earn a Purple Heart. This prompt gave me the perfect excuse to dive into my family history and solve the cold case of my great-grandfather’s war service. After hours, days even, of research, fact-checking, and cross-referencing, I finally know what Yeoman Mignini accomplished during the war.

This Memorial Day, I urge you to learn about your family history. I urge you to call your relatives and ask them to share their stories. I ask you, how are we supposed to carry on their legacy if we do not know it? How are we supposed to appreciate everything our family members went through so that we could live the way we do today? Memorial Day is a day of remembrance and a day to honor our fallen soldiers. I ask you to learn about what we should be remembering.

As my great-grandfather said, "It isn’t for a Mignini to be afraid."