Mario Tonelli before and after Bataan Death March — iavmuseum.org image
By Casey Bukro
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists
The definition of hero is a person endowed with great courage and strength, one noted for feats of courage or nobility, or someone who risked or sacrificed their life.
The term is bandied about freely these days, sometimes given to people who overcome rather ordinary challenges of life.
Sometimes we don’t even recognize those who deserve to be called heroes, in part because they often don’t want to talk about it.
For me, Mario “Motts” Tonelli was one of them. It was a brief encounter when I was either a young reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago or early in my career as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
I vaguely remember an aging and long-time Cook County official, a husky Italian-American who grew up playing in Chase Park in Chicago’s north side Uptown Community.
I never heard of the guy and figured, unfairly, that he was just another political hack. He was soft-spoken, wearing a suit and didn’t seem to have much to say, in contrast to the usual blustering Cook County politicians. But his eyes were sharp.
Quiet man
Only later did I discover who this quiet man really was, and about his life in World War Two. After that terrible war, Tonelli came home and in 1946, at the age of 30, became the youngest person to be elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. A republican in a bastion of democratic politics, Tonelli served eight years on that board.
All told, he served for 42 years in Cook County politics and government, including, according to press accounts, Cook County’s top environmental protection official. He retired in 1988.
Those accomplishments alone count as outstanding life achievements. But they really are not the only reasons Mario Tonelli’s name was widely recognized in Chicago and nationally.
Mario Tonelli was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, one of the few lucky ones chosen by chance and circumstance to live while thousands of others died while captives of Japanese troops in the Philippines.
An ordeal
What, if anything, prepares a man for such an ordeal? Looking back on Tonelli’s life history, none of it can be said to be ordinary. It was as remarkable for its heights of glory, his good luck, as its depths of misery, his bad luck.
Tonelli’s parents were Italian immigrants Celi and his wife Lavania. Misfortune touched the boy early.
At the age of 6, while careening wildly in an ally as boys will do past barrels of burning garbage, a friend bumped into one of those barrels, showering Tonelli with flaming debris, severely burning his legs and body. When he woke in a hospital, a doctor whispered to Tonelli’s father that the boy might never walk again.
Celi, the father of four children and a former stone quarry worker in Northern Italy, insisted otherwise. He built a wheeled platform on which Mario could travel and exercise, leading to a few exploratory steps, then more as he shuffled around the neighborhood.
Second home
Nearby Chase Park became his second home and training ground, climbing the monkey bars and learning to run again.
At Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School, he excelled in basketball, track, baseball and football. He took varsity letters in nearly every sport at DePaul Academy. At one track meet, Tonelli placed first in pole vault, shot put, high jump and the 440-yard dash. His coach called him a “one-man team.”
Mario was gaining a reputation as a sport phenomenon. His parents did not quite understand this American fascination with sports, but they recognized that their ruggedly handsome son was gaining respect, especially important at a time when Italian immigrants were cursed.
Courted by universities
Dozens of universities courted Tonelli. He wanted to attend the University of Southern California. But Elmer Layden, Notre Dame’s football coach, came to the Tonelli apartment in Chicago with an Italian-speaking priest. While Layden spoke with the father in the living room, the priest spoke with his mother in the kitchen.
Afterward, Lavania told her son: “You’re going to Notre Dame. It’s a Catholic school, and you won’t be far from home.” Telling how the decision was made, young Tonelli added with a laugh, “and that was it.”
Now a brawny 200-pound fullback standing 5-11, Mario was homesick. Football practice was demanding. He missed his parents. He missed Chicago. One afternoon, a priest, John O’Hara, noticed the lonesome boy, and offered to talk. Mario poured his heart out and the priest listened.
Becoming friends
Over the next weeks and months, they became friends. O’Hara became Notre Dame’s president and a cardinal. Mario became a powerful starting fullback in his junior year, then a star in his senior year.
They nicknamed him the “Pony Express” because he always delivered. He was a tough kid who didn’t talk much.
A highlight in Tonelli’s Notre Dame career, one proving momentous later, came in 1937. Notre Dame’s stadium was packed with 40,000 fans watching a season finale between the Fighting Irish and their arch rival, the University of Southern California, the school Tonelli originally wanted to attend.
Number 58
With the score tied nearing the final minutes of the fourth quarter, Tonelli, wearing number 58 on his jersey, ran 68-yards toward the Trojan goal line, reaching the eight-yard line before he was tackled. On the next play, Tonelli made the game-winning touchdown to roaring cheers, winning the national championship.
In 1939, after the College All-Star game, Tonelli bought a gold Notre Dame graduation ring with a diamond in the center to mark his blazing university sports career, a class ring engraved with his initials and the name of the university.
After graduation, Tonelli joined the Chicago Cardinals football team, which paid him $4,000 a year. Again wearing number 58 on his jersey, he played against the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. His final game as a Cardinal at the time was on March 10, 1941 against the Chicago Bears, which the Bears won 31-20.
Enlists in army
Then the young athlete made a decision that would drastically alter his life. Tonelli enlisted in the army in 1941 five days after marrying his darkhaired sweetheart Mary and living on Wilson Avenue in Chicago with his bride.
It seemed sensible at the time. Germany unleashed a war in Europe and young men were enlisting for one-year hitches. Tonelli reasoned he could join the military, meet his obligation and be back home in a year.
“One year and I’m out, boys,” he told his Cardinal teammates. “I’ll be back knocking you in the head before you can kick the mud off your cleats.”
A staff sergeant
Reporting for duty at Camp Wallace, Texas, in March 1941, the football phenom eventually became a staff sergeant assigned to the 200th Coast Artillery. With just a short time to go in his enlistment, Tonelli was stationed at Clark Field on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
“They woke us up about 5 o’clock in the morning and they told us that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and we’d probably be next on the agenda. I was just coming out of the mess hall and I saw the formation of the bombers. At first, someone thought they were American planes, but they weren’t. They bombed the fields.”
Japanese aircraft also strafed American bombers and fighter planes parked closely together on Clark Field, destroying many of them. Caught far from anti-aircraft guns, Tonelli reportedly grabbed a rifle and futilely shot at the Japanese aircraft overhead in an attempt to fight back.
Japanese attack
A force of 75,000 Imperial Japanese Army soldiers attacked the Philippines, touching off a three-month battle on Jan. 7, 1942 with 15,000 American and 90,000 Filipino forces in what became known as the Battle of Bataan. They retreated into Bataan, a steamy jungle of rice paddies where tropical temperatures reached 110 degrees.
Tonelli and the others fought while supplies of food, medicine and ammunition dwindled.
On April 9, 1942, the weak, starving and exhausted American and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese, by order of Major General Edward P. King, who accepted personal responsibility for the surrender, perhaps to save lives but unwittingly condemning thousands of soldiers to their deaths because of what happened next.
Bataan Death March
That was what became known as the Bataan Death March, an unimaginable atrocity even by brutal wartime standards.
Japanese troops hardened by the Battle of Bataan began rounding up prisoners in the towns of Mariveles and Bagac. Reports differ, but some 60,000 American and Filipino military men were taken prisoner, along with about 38,000 civilians caught up in the battle.
Soon after being taken prisoner, Tonelli recalled seeing a Japanese soldier carrying a decapitated human head on the top of a long pole.
“We’re in trouble,” Tonelli recalled saying. Some Japanese commanders considered them “captives” who could be executed, and not prisoners of war entitled to humanitarian treatment.
Sweltering heat
The Bataan Death March on April 9, 1942, was an effort by the Japanese to move all the captives about 60 miles, forcing them to walk without food or water to a rail line in sweltering heat, board oven-like steel cattle cars until they were packed so tightly the dead could not fall during a ride lasting an hour, then walk again to the final destination, a place known as Camp O’Donnell.
The relocation took seven days, and because of severe physical abuse and wanton killings, hundreds of prisoners died each day. Those who dropped from exhaustion were shot, beheaded with swords or bayoneted. Trucks drove over some who fell on the road.
On the first stop in the march, Japanese soldiers ordered the captives to empty their pockets and surrender items of value, like jewelry or keepsakes. Those found carrying Japanese money or souvenirs were shot in the belief they were taken from the Japanese.
Beatings and killings
Knocking out men’s teeth for gold fillings was common, along with random beatings and killing prisoners indiscriminately. Mile upon mile, they were taunted, tortured and slammed with rifle butts. Civilian Filipinos who took pity on the column of ragged, walking prisoners and tried to throw food to them were killed.
It was during his army and prisoner days that Tonelli acquired a nickname, Motts, although its meaning and why it was bestowed on him is not explained in public records.
So he became Mario “Motts” Tonelli. In a life marked by extreme and unusual circumstances, even as a prisoner of war that continued.
Added to Tonelli lore is an encounter he had with a Japanese army officer.
The gold ring
At some point on the march, one of the Japanese soldiers noticed the gold Notre Dame class ring Tonelli wore. Jabbing a bayonet toward the ring, the soldier demanded it. Tonelli hesitated.
“Give it to him, Motts,” called one of the prisoners. “Or he’ll kill you. It’s not worth dying for.”
Reluctantly, Tonelli twisted the ring off his finger and handed it to the threatening soldier.
Japanese officer
A few minutes later, Tonelli noticed a Japanese officer talking to the thieving soldier. Then the officer walked up to Tonelli and asked, in perfect English, “Did one of my soldiers take something from you?”
“Yes,” answered Tonelli. “My graduation ring from Notre Dame.”
The officer reached into his pocket and took out a ring.
“Is this it?” the officer asked. “Yes,” answered Tonelli. “That’s my ring.”
Handing it back to Tonelli, the officer said: “I was educated in America. At the University of Southern California. I know a little about the famous Notre Dame football team. In fact, I watched you beat USC in 1937. You were a hell of a player. I know how much this ring means to you, so I wanted to get it back to you.”
Good luck wish
With that, the officer turned and walked away, saying: “I’d advise you to put that away. Someone is going to take it from you.” Tonelli recalled years later, “He gave me my ring back and wished me good luck.”
Several versions of this encounter exist. The dialogue is slightly different, but all versions agree that the Japanese officer recovered the ring, acknowledged Tonelli’s victory over USC and returned the ring. It was one of the rare examples of Japanese kindness toward the prisoners.
Tonelli’s Notre Dame class ring
Slaughter resumes
Minutes afterward, the slaughter known as the Bataan Death March resumed. For the rest of his time as a prisoner, Tonelli kept the ring in a metal soap case, looking at it secretly to remind him of home.
Nearly 650 Americans and 10,000 Filipinos died on the Bataan Death March, according to published figures, which vary. At Camp O’Donnell, several hundred more prisoners died each day.
Tonelli spent the next two and a half years at three prison camps, taking beatings at each of them. He and other prisoners worked as slaves clearing roads and chopping wood for their captors while living in filthy conditions. Grave-digging was another duty assigned to Tonelli because 30 to 45 prisoners were dying each day.
Rice with worms
Meals were bowls of rice or rice soup filled with worms. Some men captured and ate monkeys and iguanas.
Months passed as Tonelli and others were wracked by tropical illnesses that brought fever and pain.
Then it got worse. In the summer of 1944, Tonelli and other prisoners were forced into the dark hold of what became known as a Japanese “hell ship,” a merchant freighter. It was a harrowing 62-day journey to mainland Japan stalked by American bombers. Three ships filled with captives were sunk by pilots who were not aware of their cargo, killing thousands of American soldiers.
Driven mad
On the ship, buckets were lowered to the men to use as toilets. Once emptied in the ocean, the buckets were lowered again with rice to eat. Driven mad, soldiers would climb up and throw themselves into the ocean.
Upon landing in Japan, Tonelli ended up in a work camp near Yokkaichi where he labored for 10 months. Weak from disease, starvation and weight loss, Tonelli once again was transferred, this time to a scrap metal plant in June 1945.
There, according to another episode in Tonelli lore, he wobbled to a table where a Japanese officer was giving prison garb and identification numbers to prisoners. Tonelli looked at the number, and it was 58, the number he wore during his football days.
“Something seemed to go right through me,” Tonelli recalled. “And I thought I’m going to make it.”
Guards flee
Two atomic bombs convinced the Japanese to surrender, and the guards watching Tonelli and others fled. As Tonelli told the story, American bombers dropped small parachutes with packs of cigarettes and messages saying: “Hostilities have ceased. Will see you soon.” That was followed by another run dropping 55-gallon drums full of C-rations and medicine. Prisoners opened them and ate themselves sick.
Tonelli spent 42 months as a prisoner. His weight fell to 98-pounds and he suffered from malaria, dysentery, scurvy and beriberi during that time. Photos showed him sunken-eyed and practically a skeleton of a man. Of 10,000 Americans taken prisoner in the Philippines, an estimated 4,000 returned to the United States.
The former prisoner took a steamer to San Francisco, then promptly boarded a train to Chicago.
No celebration
“When I came back, there was no celebration,” he said. “My mother, dad, brother, sister and wife were at the station. That was all.” He spent the first afternoon shopping with his wife.
Adding to the lore, while still a hospital out-patient, Tonelli signed a contract with the Chicago Cardinals two months after being liberated.
“I’m in shape,” he told reporters. “I weigh 184 now,” which might have been an exaggeration. “That’s only six pounds under my old playing weight,” adding that his life as a football player helped him survive the death march. “You had to be in good shape to take that treatment.”
Skip that
But that is about all he would say about it. Asked for more details, he’d say: “Let’s skip all that.”
Cardinals owner Charles Bidwill knew that Tonelli had to play one more professional game to qualify for a pension. Tonelli was still struggling with malaria and no doubt weakened by years of punishment and abuse. But he was eager to be in the game again.
So after a five-year interruption, Tonelli suits up again, pulling on his pads and helmet and lacing up his high top leather cleats.
It was the game on Oct. 28, 1945 at Green Bay against the Packers, described in detail by the Chicago Sun-Times on Feb. 3, 2002. It started on the front page with headlines reading: “Motts Tonelli’s life in football and war: Hell and glory.” The story filled six full pages.
Now he was in the tunnel, the story says, waiting to burst out with the team onto the field to the roar of fans.
Get in there
The game begins and Tonelli waits his turn, until the coach says: “All right Tonelli, get in there.” Pulling on his helmet, Tonelli trots to the huddle. With a sharp clap, the players walk toward the line and settle. The play is coming to him.
The ball is in his gut. Pads thump and men fall. Tonelli sees an opening, but he’s hit hard by a tackler and slammed to the turf. No gain.
He goes into the huddle again, takes the ball when the action starts, charges toward the line and is knocked to the ground again. Another fullback is called in and Tonelli is taken out.
Lucky man
It didn’t matter. For Motts, it was like being back from the dead. He could look around the stadium and think, “I’m a lucky man.”
But that was not the end of his football career. In 1946, he played for the Chicago Rockets of the new American Football League. He just would not give up, a trait that got him through the war.
Tonelli died on Jan. 7, 2003 in Chicago at the age of 86.
This is the story of one man’s misery in a sea of misery and the capricious nature of warfare, where one man survives while thousands around him die.
Some called Tonelli a hero, but more accurately he struggled just to stay alive. He was gifted with unusual athletic prowess, but, like many victims of war, he was denied the use of that gift and a life he would have had otherwise as a professional football player.
Today’s wars
And how different is that from wars today between Russia and Ukraine and the Israeli-Hamas conflict? Or any war? There too, are carnage and atrocities.
As strange as it might sound, there are rules even for warfare, called the Geneva Conventions.
And there is ethics, defined as a system of moral principles and values.
A war crime
The Bataan Death March eventually was seen as a war crime, a violation of those rules. Several Japanese army officers were tried on war crimes charges, convicted and executed.
Later in life, Tonelli continued to say little about his wartime experiences. “If I told everything, no one would believe it,” he said. “It was that awful.”
But he became passionate about observing Memorial Day, and regretted public indifference to the sacrifices that Memorial Day is intended to celebrate.
An observance
“Memorial Day originally was for the dead soldiers,” he observed. “Today, people are relaxing. People don’t think of the day as it’s supposed to be. It’s just a day off. But it’s really about the sadness of young guys being killed. That’s what I wish we could all take time to remember.”
This tribute to Tonelli is intended to atone for that long-ago failure to recognize who he really was and that after almost four years of brutal torment, he went on to four decades of public service. How easily I had dismissed him. He taught me to get to know people a little better.
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