St. Mary honors World War II hero Lt. Partridge

By Marcelle Naman
For the Catholic Week
St. Mary Catholic School presented the 2023 NCEA Distinguished Graduate Award  posthumously to St. Mary alumnus and World War II hero, Lt. Harry Anslem "June" Partridge. 
The award was accepted by Lt. Partridge's sister Eleanor Partridge Cummings and his nephew, Ben Cummings. 
Lt. Partridge was honored by his alma mater 80 years later for his heroic act of putting others above himself in steering his plane shot down by enemy fire in 1944 to save a village in Boffalora, Italy. 
Witnesses told the story that Lt. Partridge steered his plane away from the village to nearby woods to spare the village when he could have saved his own life by parachuting out of the plane. 
Lt. Partridge was buried in the village's Catholic cemetery, ironically, named St. Mary Catholic Church. The village saw him as a hero for his actions and created a memorial trail from the church to the crash site just this year where some of his Mobile family members were able to attend the dedication this past December. 
St. Mary still has his school records, now more than 100 years old. 
Although Lt. Partridge’s body was brought back to the U.S. in the late 1940s, his heroic story was unknown for over 70 years until a genealogical researcher happened upon his record in the Italian Church only a decade ago.