Angelo “Kayo” Mandarano

“One of my favorite memories of Dad is going with him and my older brother to play golf when I was little.”

– Patrick Mandarano ’17

Angelo “Kayo” Mandarano, remembered by his son, Patrick Mandarano

Quick-acting Angelo “Kayo” Mandarano saved the lives of several fellow soldiers.

Angelo Mandarano was drafted into the Army when he was 23 years old, and he served in the European and Asian-Pacific theaters from 1941 to 1945.

When Mandarano was stationed in the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska, the weather was very cold, windy, and messy. He would half-jokingly say that if you walked with the wind it would take five minutes to get somewhere, but it would take an hour if you walked against it.

One day while marching along a mountainous, snowy area of the Aleutians, one his fellow soldiers fell down a steep cliff, but managed to grab a tree branch to keep from falling to his death. Mandarano impulsively volunteered to climb down the cliff and save him. Mandarano did not realize until later that he had put his own life in danger.

Mandarano also is said to have saved multiple lives including his own. According to his son Patrick, “Dad was training a group of soldiers how to throw live grenades. During the training, one of the soldiers got frightened after he pulled the pin out of the grenade and nervously dropped it on the ground. My dad quickly picked up the grenade and threw it as high and far as he could, thus preventing anyone from being harmed. He has estimated that 15 to 20 people would have been killed by the grenade had he not reacted as quickly as he did. Unfortunately, neither of these stories was reported and my dad never received any thanks or recognition for the alleged actions he took to save numerous lives.”