The deadly coronavirus claimed the life of George Possas, a veteran of World War II.
Possas, 93, of East Northport, New York was the son of Greek immigrants who came to the United States in the early 1900s.
Born in 1926, he grew up in the midst of the Great Depression in Corona, New York, a thriving Greek neighborhood of Queens, before enlisting in the army at age 17.
Some members of the victim’s family are also sick, testing positive for the virus and quarantined, his daughter Denise Bocchicchio told a local newspaper. One of her sisters remains in the intensive care unit of Huntington Hospital.
Possas fought on several islands in the South Pacific, including the Battle of Hollandia in New Guinea. He was deployed on a ship headed for Hiroshima, Japan as part of the American plan to invade the islands. But then the US dropped the two atomic bombs which ended the war. Possas served in Japan before discharge in 1946.
He married Evelyn Lambrinon in 1953 and they had four children and nine grandchildren before she died in 2016. They were married for 64 years.
Active in the Greek-American community and church, Possas received the 2017 Greatest Generation Award from the Washington Oxi Day Foundation.
George Possas Receiving the Greatest Generation Award from the Washington Oxi Day Foundation
