Heroes Are Never Forgotten

Among the first victims of the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which began the Second World War on the Pacific, was the USS Utah battleship. Hit with the two torpedoes she suddenly began to list, and only the courage and devotion of chief water tender Peter Tomich prevented the explosion of boilers and saved the lives of many crewmembers. For his heroic act, during which he lost his life, Tomich was awarded the highest American award for courage - the Congressional Medal of Honor. Only after half a century, did retired American Rear-Admiral Robert Lunney find Tomich's descendants in Prolog, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, it took nearly a decade to prove his case. After six and a half decades, one of the few undelivered Medals of Honor was awarded to the retired colonel of Croatian Armed Forces Srećko Herceg Tonić on the deck of the U.S. Navy's largest aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, in 2006 in Split, Croatia.