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CFIVA News
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BOSNIAN MEDAL OF HONOUR CLAIMED Tuesday, July 4, 2006 In a striking coincidence, following on from our 2005 news article about the Bosnian-Croat who won a posthumous Medal of Honour for saving the lives of the crew of the doomed battleship USS Utah at Pearl Harbour in December 1941, a relative was recently found to receive the unclaimed medal that has remained in the care of the US Navy for 65 years. Born in the village of Prolog in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire Petar Erceg Toni emigrated with his cousin Ivan to America and eventually became Chief Watertender, US Navy. Ivan was Peters only next of kin but efforts to locate him failed as he had returned to his homeland. The Medal eventually came to rest at the Peter Tomich Hall at the US Naval Academy at Newport, Rhode Island. In the last twenty years, renewed efforts were made by the Croatian community in America; a journalist sent to the village of Prolog in Hercegovina learned that Toni is a clan name of Herceg and discovered the birth and other records of Petar Toni. Naval historian Admiral J Robert Lunney made strenuous efforts to identify Tomichs surviving family; in 2005 he travelled to Prolog to verify the original church and civil records. His first submission to the US Navy was rejected but a second brief was more successful, helped by politicians and Mato Herceg of California, a Vietnam veteran and distant relative of Peter Tomich, who was also born in Prolog and uncovered fresh documentation. Eventually the US authorities contacted retired Croatian Army Lieutenant-Colonel Sre ko Herceg living in Split, himself the recipient of several medals for valour in the Croatian war of independence 1991-95. Sre ko is the grandson of cousin Ivan and thus the surviving next of kin. During a solemn ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise on 18th May 2006, Commander US Naval Forces Europe Admiral Harry Ulrich presented the Medal of Honour to Colonel Herceg on behalf of Chief Watertender Peter Tomich, USN. Admiral Ulrich said, Chief Watertender Peter Tomichs selfless heroism and steadfast courage represented the very best of his native country and his adopted one as well.
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