Carmine Parziale was born on April 11, 1921, in Weedville, Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on June 18, 1940, and after completing recruit training at Naval Training Station Newport, Rhode Island, he was assigned to the submarine USS Barracuda (SS-163) at the Navy Yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during her fitting out in August 1940. Parziale remained aboard USS Barracuda when she was recommissioned in September 1940, and completed submarine torpedo boat qualification in July 1941. He then attended Torpedo School at Naval Torpedo Station Newport, Rhode Island, from December 1941 to March 1942, when he received the rating of Torpedoman's Mate 3rd Class. TM3C Parziale joined the crew of the submarine USS Grunion (SS-216) at her commissioning in April 1942, and was killed in action during a confrontation with the armed Japanese freighter Kano Maru on July 30, 1942. On August 22, 2007, a search team organized by the three sons of CDR Mannert Abele (the Captain of the Grunion when she was sunk) used a remotely operated vehicle to find a sunken vessel 3,000 feet down in the Bering Sea north of Kiska Island at the tip of the Aleutian Islands. On October 1, 2008, the U.S. Navy announced that the sunken vessel is the World War II submarine USS Grunion (SS-216).

His Navy Commendation Medal Citation reads:

For meritorious conduct as a member of the crew of the U.S.S. GRUNION which destroyed three enemy destroyers while engaged in a war patrol in enemy controlled waters. Despite severe and persistent anti-submarine measures resulting from these three successful attacks, the GRUNION was brought safely through the counter attacks and continued an aggressive war patrol. As a member of the crew of the GRUNION, your performance of duty was an important and material contribution to the prosecution of this war.