Mario George Tonelli (March 27, 1916 – January 7, 2003) was a professional American football player who played running back for one season for the Chicago Cardinals.
Miraculously it was returned by an English speaking Japanese Officer who had been educated at the University of Southern California and had seen Tonelli score the winning touchdown in the 1937 game between the two schools.
Tonelli later buried the ring in a metal soap dish beneath his prison barracks to confound would be thieves.
Of the 2,009 estimated total number of POWs that were in Dapecol during its existence from October 1942- June 1944 only 805 would survive the war.
This biographical article relating to an American football running back born in the 1910s is a stub.