Rocco Morabito (November 2, 1920 – April 5, 2009) was an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

who spent the majority of his career at the '' Jacksonville Journal''. Morabito, born in

Port Chester, New York Port Chester is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the largest part of the town of Rye (town), New York, Rye in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County by populat ...

, moved to Florida when he was 5, and by age 10 was working as a newsboy, selling papers for the ''Jacksonville Journal''. He served in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in the

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

as a ball-turret gunner on a

B-17 The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

. After the war, he returned to the ''Jacksonville Journal'' and started his photography career shooting sporting events for the paper. He worked for the ''Journal'' for 42 years, 33 of them as a photographer, until retiring in 1982. The news photographer won the 1968

Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. From 2000 it has used the "breaking news" name but it is considered a continuation of the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photogr ...

for "The Kiss of Life", a ''Jacksonville Journal'' photo that showed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation between two workers on a utility pole. Randall G. Champion was unconscious and hanging upside down after contacting a low voltage line; fellow lineman J.D. Thompson revived him while strapped to the pole by the waist. Thanks to Thompson's intervention, Champion survived and lived until 2002, when he died of heart failure at the age of 64; Thompson was still living as of 2017. Morabito died on April 5, 2009, while in

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by ...

care.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morabito, Rocco 1920 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American photographers Artists from Jacksonville, Florida People from Port Chester, New York Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II United States Army Air Forces soldiers