Pvt. Joseph M. Cocco

Private Joseph M. Cocco died on September 11, 1943 in the service of the U.S. Army. Joseph was part of Company C, 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion. He took part in Operation Avalanche. Among the medals he received was the Purple Heart. 

He predeceased his parents, Rocco and Clara Cocco, his sisters, Lillian Mirra and Gilda (Charles Tenaglia). He is survived by his nieces JoAnn, Donna, Gilda, Diana and nephew Anthony.  

This is Private Joseph M. Cocco's story.

Soldier Accounted for from WWII (Cocco, J.) Washington – The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Private Joseph M. Cocco, 22, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, missing in action during World War II, was accounted for May 15, 2024. In September 1943, Cocco was assigned to the Company C, 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion in the Mediterranean Theater in World War II. He landed in Italy on Sept. 9 as part of Operation AVALANCHE, the amphibious invasion of the Italian peninsula near Salerno. On Sept. 11, Cocco was reported killed in action in the vicinity of the Chiunzi Pass, north of Maiori, Italy. His body was not recovered, and the Germans never reported him as a prisoner of war. Following the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS), Army Quartermaster Corps, was the organization tasked with recovering missing American personnel in the Mediterranean Theater. In 1947, AGRS investigators located an isolated burial site on the north slope of Monte di Chiunzi, where they recovered a set of remains designated as X-146. Although X-146 was initially believed to be Cocco, following recovery, investigators didn’t have enough identifying data or circumstantial information about Cocco’s loss to positively ID the remains. X-146 was interred at U.S. Military Cemetery Nettuno, which is now Sicily-Rome American Cemetery. In 2019, while studying unresolved American losses from Operation Avalanche, a DPAA historian compiled information from archival documents and secondary sources that placed Cocco’s death at a forward observation post on the north slope of Monte di Chiunzi, the same area where X-146 was recovered. The remains which had been buried at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy in 1948, were disinterred in March 2022 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for identification. To identify Cocco’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), analysis. Cocco’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Nettuno, Italy, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Cocco will be buried in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, in mid-November 2024.For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.DPAA would like to thank the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion Veteran’s Association, The Descendants of World War II Rangers Inc., Associazione Salerno 1943, and Terry Lowry for research support. For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA

There will be a graveside service with full Military honors on November 18, 2024 at 10 A.M. at Holy Cross Cemetery, Yeadon, PA