On October 10, 2020 Ralph Cavaliere passed away. All my heartfelt sympathies to Ralph’s family on their loss.

He was one of the last surviving members of the glorious 855^th BS. Born in Mendicino, Cosenza, Italy in 1925, he had been a Sergeant in the United States Army Air Forces and a tail gunner on B-24 Liberators.

Some five years ago Ralph visited this website for the first time: he immediately contacted me. Although we never met personally, we became good friends. We have kept in touch ever since. His witty irony and his ‘Cavaliere way’ of dealing with life were extraordinary to me.

Ralph has been very generous to me, sharing not only his very personal memories but also a quantity of images, documents and information about the 885^th, which have been invaluable to this website. He also told me his story with the Special Unit: the most part of it can be found in the ‘downloads’ section. Reading it and sharing it with those interested would be a great way to pay a tribute to Ralph and to all the boys of 885^th.

Thank you, Ralph. We will miss you.