Dom Malchiodi
| Date and Place of Birth: | November 11, 1920 Chester, CT |
| Date and Place of Death: | May 31, 1945 Oostburg, Holland |
| Baseball Experience: | Minor League |
| Position: | Catcher |
| Rank: | Second Lieutenant |
| Military Unit: | 495th Bomb Squadron, 344th Bomb Group USAAF |
| Area Served: | European Theater of Operations |
Dom P. Malchiodi, who was born in Chester, Connecticut, but grew up
in the Bronx, New York. He signed with the New York Yankees’
organization in 1941, and played a handful of games for Wes Ferrell’s
Leaksville-Draper-Spray Triplets of the Class D Bi-State League that
year. The Triplets won the league title with a 64–46 record but were
beaten in the playoffs, four games to one, by Danville-Schoolfield. He
spent the 1942 season playing in Canada, first with the Trois-Rivières
Renards of the Class C Canadian-American League and then the Quebec
Athletics of the same league. The young catcher played 27 games in 1942
and batted .272.
Malchiodi’s brief career in professional baseball ended at that point as
military service beckoned and he trained as a bombardier with the Army
Air Force. He served in Europe with the 495th Bomb Squadron of the 344th
Bomb Group, Ninth Air Force, a Martin B-26 Marauder outfit that
supported Allied forces during the Battle of the Bulge, and continued to
strike supply points, communications centers, bridges and marshalling
yards from its base at Cormeilles-en-Vexin in France. The 344th Bomb
Group flew its last operational mission on April 26, 1945, and with the
surrender of Germany on May 7, the group was at Florennes-Juzaine in
Belgium.
For Malchiodi, baseball was on his mind, and he wrote home during the
spring telling his mother how they had got a bulldozer and were going to
plow out a diamond and form some teams to play ball while waiting to go
back stateside. Nevertheless, military duties continued and the group
conducted regular training flights, including simulated attacks on
target rafts at the Blankenburghe Gunnery Range in the North Sea off the
coast of Holland.
On May 31, 1945, Second Lieutenant Malchiodi was the bombardier with a
new crew that was led by pilot First Lieutenant Harrell Foxx. Foxx led a
formation of six B-26Gs in a strafing run at the gunnery range and after
making his pass, he announced over the radio transmitter that part of
his plane’s tail had been shot away by his own turret gunner. Foxx
headed straight for land as the rest of his echelon followed in loose
formation from where they could see that all but four feet of the right
horizontal stabilizer was missing, there were holes in the base of the
vertical stabilizer and the left horizontal stabilizer was almost shot
in two. Foxx intended to land at the first available airfield and as the
plane reached the coast of Holland, he started a slight turn. At this
point the left stabilizer broke off and the plane nosed into a steep
dive, hit the ground and exploded on impact. All seven crew members were
killed.
Malchiodi was originally buried at the Netherlands American Military
Cemetery, but his body was later returned to the United States and now
rests at St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Chester, Connecticut.
|
Team |
League |
Class |
G |
AB |
R |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
AVG |
|
| 1941 | Leaksville-Draper-Spray | Bi-State | D | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 1942 | Trois-Rivieres/Quebec | Canadian-American | C | 27 | 81 | 8 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 11 | .272 |
Dom Malchiodi
2/Lt. Dom Malchiodi (third from left) with his B-26 crew
Date Added February 1, 2012 Updated June 16, 2014
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