Peter Albano

Rank: Private First Class, United States Marine Corps

Service Number: 433275

Unit: Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division

Entered service from: New Jersey

Died: April 18, 1945

Awards: Purple Heart, Presidential Citation (Sixth Marines), American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal

Buried at: Harleigh Mausoleum, Haddon Avenue, Camden, New Jersey

Private First Class Peter J. Albano was the son of Nunzio and Rose Albano. The family lived at 20 Taylor Avenue in Audubon, New Jersey. Peter Albano was a 1937 graduate of Audubon High School. He had attended the South Jersey Law School in Camden, New Jersey before entering the Marines in July of 1942. He was activated in July of 1943.

Once having gone on active duty, Peter Albano was sent to Princeton University where he took part in the Naval V-12 program. Also at Princeton during this time was Augustus D. Whitney of Camden, New Jersey. The South Jersey Law School granted him a diploma in absentia in 1944. Private Albano was sent overseas in October of that year.

Attached to Marine Intelligence, Peter Albano was killed in action on Okinawa on April 18, 1945, at the age of 24. His death was reported in the Camden Courier-Post on May 5, 1945. Peter Albano was brought home to New Jersey after the war, and he rests at Harleigh Mausoleum in Camden, New Jersey.

Five members of Audubon High School’s 1937 graduating class were lost while serving in America’s military during World War II: Peter Albano, Charles Adamson, George Riggin, Edwin Klenk, and Charles Stevenson.

War and navy Department casualty lists yesterday reported eleven South Jersey men killed, 13 wounded, and a Vineland man a prisoner. In all cases the next of kin have been notified previously and in case of divergence from the list, the last word sent to the next of kin is always the appropriate final authority:

Killed:

PFC Peter Albano, 24, USMC, of 20 Taylor Avenue, Audubon.

Albano was attached to Marine Intelligence and was reported killed April 18 on Okinawa in a Navy Department telegram to his parents, Mr. & Mrs. Nunzio Albano. He entered the service in July, 1943 and went overseas in October, 1944. He was a graduate of Audubon High School Class of ‘37, and a graduate of South Jersey Law School. He received his diploma from the law school in absentia in 1944. He also attended Princeton University during a Navy V-12 course.

Before the war, Peter Albano participated in a mock trial conducted by the graduating class of the South Jersey Law School as part of their commencement program. He was listed as a juror in the humorous proceedings, described in the Camden Courier-Post on June 1, 1939, under the headline “Jury Dismissed in Arsenic Case of Dead Mouse in Prune Juice.” The jury included Peter Albano of Audubon among its twelve members. The case centered on a restaurant customer who claimed to have found a dead rodent in her prune juice at a Camden establishment.