Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1948 Lucky Bag:

Nello Alphonso Da Rodda

Nello came to Annapolis with two years of previous Fleet experience. His supply of repartee was seemingly inexhaustible. Unfailingly he took a last-minute glimpse at the books before going to class. His athletic prowess was well exhibited as the man behind the varsity oarsmen, a husky coxswain. If he wasn’t calling “stroke,” he flaked out. Irish took to Dago like a duck to water. His opinion of extra duty was that “when it rains, it pours!” Navy could usually find something to occupy his free time. Nello hopes to enter the air corps and/or submarines after graduation.

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Nello was a member of the Trident Calendar staff, of the Christmas Card Committee, and was on the Masqueraders. He graduated with the class of 1948-A, the last of the wartime-accelerated classes, in June 1947. (The bottom half of the class by academic standing, designated 1948-B, completed an extra year and graduated in June 1948.)

Loss

Nello was lost when the plane he was piloting crashed in Virginia on November 3, 1952. Two other men aboard were also killed.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Nello attended Philip Ginter Junior High School and Summit Hill High School. As a junior, he was a cheerleader and a journalist on the school magazine “The Hilltopper.” He was awarded first prize in the poppy poster contest for the American Legion of Allentown. As a senior in 1941, he was the narrator for the Dramatic Club’s presentation of “A Broadcast to End All Broadcasts.”

He received a scholarship through State Senator M. F. Crowe from the American Legion to attend any state aided college in Pennsylvania. One scholarship is awarded in Carbon and Monroe counties each year to the winner of an essay contest on Americanism. He also received a cash award for his outstanding scholastic ability from the Alumni Association of the Bliss Electrical School in Wilkes-Barre.

In 1943 he was an aviation ordnance man, third class, and lived in Washington, D.C.

In June 1949, Nello and his roommate, Ensign Robert Mitchell, Jr. (‘48A,) both of Whiting Field, Pensacola, spent the weekend with Robert’s parents in Bolivar, Tennessee.

Nello was piloting a single-engine navy plane attached to Carrier Air Group 4, Jacksonville. The plane went down four miles northwest of Louisa, Virginia. Two other navy airman were also killed. Their remains were buried 18 feet in the ground under wreckage and dirt in a deserted farmhouse yard. The three had taken off from Olmstead Air Force Base in Pennsylvania.

On November 10, Nello’s funeral procession led by the American Legionnaires left the Tamagnini house to St. Joseph’s Church for a requiem high mass. He was buried in the parish’s cemetery with full military rites.

Nello’s father died by 1930 in Pennsylvania. His mother Augusta, born in Italy, married Jacinto Lagos, a coal miner from Central America. His sister Nellie was born in Italy and was one year old when the family came to America in 1921. His brother Aldo was 3 years younger than him. He recently completed his training as a jet pilot. Nello’s wife was Mary Rose Cecelia Tamagnini whom he married in 1951.

His brother, Aldo Jacinto Da Rodda was a Naval Officer as well. Aldo did not graduate USNA, though he appeared in the 1964 Lucky Bag as a LCDR instructor in the foreign languages department.

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Gordon Engel ‘48 also participated in the Masqueraders.

Edgar Hollister ‘48 was also in 21st Company.