Manlius WWII veteran honored with Centurion celebration

MANLIUS – World War II veteran Anthony ‘Tony’ Pircio was honored on the occasion of his 100th birthday last Friday with the crack of a three-shot military solute ringing through his Stanwood Drive neighborhood in Manlius.
On a brisk but sunny afternoon, Honor Flight Syracuse organized a caravan that arrived at Pircio’s home for a Centurion ceremony honoring Pircio’s service during the war and his many achievements in civilian life. On hand were members of the Fayetteville Fire Department and the Manlius VFW as well as a number of local politicians, neighbors, friends and family members.
Pircio was born March 5, 1921, in Tarrytown. He graduated from Washington Irving High School in 1938 and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry and doctorate in pharmacology, all from Fordham University.
During World War II, he was a commissioned officer in the Army Air Corps. With his background in science, he entered the service as a weather officer in 1943 and served with the Mighty 8th Air Force in England and Northern France, assigned to the 7th Photo Reconnaissance Group.
Before missions took place, Pircio and his team would fly over forward locations, make weather assessments and taking reconnaissance photos of potential bomb sites. This started before the Normandy invasion and continued as the Allies moved through northern France and across Europe.
“They were very instrumental [in determining] whether or not to go with Normandy and then as they advanced across France,” said Larry Richardson, Pircio’s son in law.
“I had to report the conditions of the weather so [they could determine] whether they could fly or not,” he said. It was his job, he said, to make the call “whether it was clear enough to do some damage.”
Pircio was the subject of a full chapter in Sean C. Kelly’s book “Home Bases: Memories & Stories of U.S. Military Bases Around London.” That book, published in 2014, offers snapshots of World War II bases known as “Little Americas.”
He was transported to the European Theater of Operations and back home again aboard the famed cruise liner HMS Queen Mary, which was commissioned as a troop carrier during the war. During the trips across the Atlantic, there were so many soldiers on board that they stacked the bunks three high and had their meals in the empty swimming pool.
He was honorably discharged as a captain in 1946.
Shortly after returning home, Pircio married Mary Smercak Feb. 9, 1946, whom he had met as a 16-year-old at the library in Tarrytown.
“That’s where you went to meet the girls,” he joked. “Not to read.”
Following the war, Pircio began his pharmacology career, most of which was spent with Bristol Myers, first in New Jersey and then in Manlius. He worked on the team that developed Excedrin and in 1967 he moved to Central New York and led the research team that developed the post-operative pain-relieving drug Stadol. He spent his last career years at Bristol Laboratories before retiring in 1983.
The Pircios had three children, Nick, Mary Beth and Nancy, and remained happily married for 68 years until Mary passed away in 2014.
“My parents were great. They were always there to help us,” said Mary Beth. He made bedtime fun, she added, with the stories he would make up and tell the kids. “He was good at making up stories.”
She fondly recalled the family vacations that they took each year to New Hampshire and for his pastimes, he enjoyed fishing and every Thursday night the Pircios would have a family bowling night in East Syracuse. He was a good bowler, with a 180 average, and continued bowling until he was 95 years old.
“We had a good family life, that’s what I can say,” Mary Beth said. “It was great to grow up here.”
Tony has regularly attended reunions of the Eighth Air Force Historical Society, most recently in Dayton, Ohio, in 2018 and St. Louis, Mo., in 2019. Accompanied by Mary Beth, he flew to Washington, D.C., on Honor Flight Mission 05 in April 2015, where they visited the many war monuments with other veterans. It was a memorable trip.
“When we got back to Syracuse, all of those people lined up, they wanted to hug him and they wanted to shake his hand,” Mary Beth said. “He said he felt like a politician, with everyone wanting to shake his hand. That was so nice. That was a wonderful trip.”
At the ceremony on Friday, Pircio was given a letter from Admiral Edmund Giambastiani Jr., the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who congratulated him on his birthday and thanked him for his service. Giambastiani is a Canastota native whose father, Ed, became family friends of Larry and Mary Beth Richardson.
“Please know that I am very grateful that he was able to meet and spend such cherished time with you and your family before his passing,” Giambastiani wrote.
Pircio also received a letter from Major General Mark Weatherington, commander of the Eighth Air Force.
“Your dedication to the Army Air Corps as a weather officer during World War II and your decision to serve your country in a time of need adds to the rich heritage and history of our force,” Weatherington wrote. “But your service didn’t stop there. Your participation in the Eighth Air Force Historical Society speaks to your dedication and commitment to the United States of America.
Pircio was also given dozens of birthday cards written by members of the Fayetteville-Manlius High School National Honor Society and from scouts in Boy Scout Troop 51, and symbolically, an oak tree donated by Cross Creek Nursery will soon be planted in Pircio’s honor. Richardson said he hopes that tree will be planted at F-M High School, because when Pircio was a boy, he planted an oak tree in front of Washington Irving High School in Tarrytown that still stands today.