Henry Mucci

Colonel of the United States Army Rangers

Henry Andrews Mucci (March 4, 1909 – April 20, 1997) was a colonel in the United States Army Rangers. In January 1945, during World War II, he led a force of 121 Army Rangers on a mission which rescued 513 survivors of the Bataan Death March from Cabanatuan Prison Camp, despite being heavily outnumbered. It is widely considered the most successful rescue mission in the history of the United States military.

Mucci was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to parents who had emigrated from Sicily, Italy. Today, a section of the United States Embassy in Rome, Italy is named in Mucci's honor. Henry came from a family of 10 siblings. Two of his brothers also served in the Army and Navy during the Second World War, while his sisters worked at the Veterans of Foreign Wars in America and made bazookas in factories. He enrolled at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, graduating 246th of 275 in his class in May 1936. While at West Point he participated in lacrosse and, due to his early years growing up with horses, was on the equestrian team.

Before entering the Military Academy, Mucci served as an enlisted soldier in the Army from December 1929 to June 1932.

Mucci survived the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In February 1943, the US Sixth Army put Mucci in charge of the 98th Field Artillery Battalion, previously a mule drawn pack artillery unit. Mucci announced that the Battalion was being converted from Field Artillery to Rangers, downsized the battalion from 1,000 men to 500, and held a training camp in New Guinea where he utilized commando type training techniques for over a year. Thus, Mucci created the new 6th Ranger Battalion. In March 1943, Mucci was observing an amphibious landing training exercise from the shore. One of the landing craft broke down about a quarter mile offshore and the embarked soldiers were ordered to swim ashore. One of the privates could not swim without the aid of his life preserver. He was making such slow progress that both his clothing and life preserver became waterlogged and he began to sink. Without pausing to strip off his own clothing, Mucci swam out and rescued the man. He was subsequently awarded the Soldier's Medal. They had three children. In 1946, Mucci took leave to run for Congress as a Democrat in Connecticut's 4th district to replace the retiring Clare Boothe Luce, but he was defeated by future governor and ambassador John Davis Lodge. After resigning his commission, he became the President of Bridgeport Lincoln Mercury as well as becoming an oil representative in India. In November 1974, the portion of Route 25 between Bridgeport and Newtown was named the Col. Henry A. Mucci Highway. Colonel Mucci died at age 88 in Melbourne, Florida, on April 20, 1997, as the result of a stroke, being a complication of a fractured hip sustained at age 86, while swimming in rough surf near his home. He was interred next to his wife Marian at the West Point Cemetery on May 5, 1997. The raid on Cabanatuan was depicted in the 2005 film The Great Raid, which featured actor Benjamin Bratt depicting Mucci, Bratt bearing a remarkable facial resemblance to Mucci.