Lt. Emil Wasiewski Comes Home At Last-- Part 1

From the July 4, 2012, Chicago Tribune by John Kass.

I wrote about the Dutch adopting Americans who died saving their country during World War II back August 20th.  To see the story, click on the Netherlands label.

Joyce Staniszewski, 26 of the Netherlands obviously never knew Lt. Emil Wasilewski who had died during the war, but every month she would bring flowers in his honor and set them near the war memorial at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten.

"I tried to find pictures of Emil to see how he looked like.  I still wonder what kind of a person he was and if it was always his dream to join the military and what would his life look like if he would have survived World War II," she said.

What she did know, and most importantly, was that he was an American.

What she didn't know was that he was from the South Side of Chicago and that he was the bombardier on a B-17G, or that he had died when his Flying Fortress crashed in Germany.  And, she didn't know that his father had buried an empty coffin at St. Casimir Cemetery because his body could not be found.  His father mourned at that empty casket for years after the war until his own death.

More to Come.  --GreGen