Dog tags to return home after 65 years

The Australian man who has the World War II dog tags of a long-dead Bristol veteran said he’ll send them soon to the soldier’s son in Harwinton.
“It will be like having a piece of my dad back with me,” said Charlie Kawiecki.
Kawiecki’s sister, Monica Popadic of Monroe, told her son Thursday that she is fine with letting her brother have them.
Harry Jas, the Australian who has Ezebius Joseph Kawiecki’s dog tags, said he will return them to the family.
Jas said a Munda man named Alpine found the dog tag in the jungles of New Georgia, where they had been since 1943, when Krawiecki fought there against the Japanese.
Jas said he’s trying to buy up some 200 abandoned dog tags and other war-related equipment in order to create “a local war memorial or museum” in Munda.
“I just felt that the dog tags should go to the next of kin not tourists, as some have in the past,” Jas said in an email.
Kawiecki said he is grateful to Jas and The Bristol Press for tracking him down.
“Too often people forget about the sacrifices our fathers made so that we can have what we have today, but my wife and I will never forget,” he said.
Kawiecki said that his father, who died in 1981, “was a very quiet man that never complained much at all, but was always there to support me throughout my growing years,” including helping with the Boy Scouts and following his Little League career.
“Although he loved watching war movies, he never talked about his experiences and always brushed them off as something he was supposed to do, but I am sure he was a very brave man,” Kawiecki said.
Ezebius Kawiecki, called Joe or Whitey by friends, worked at New Departure after the war, loved to fish, married and had two children, his son said.Chris Popadic of Rhode Island, a grandson of the veteran, said his grandfather must have served in Europe as well as the South Pacific. He said that when his grandmother died some years ago, the family found a Nazi gun in her home that he brought back from the war.
Another relative said that Kawiecki was in a ski unit in Europe after being wounded in the Pacific.
Jas said he got interested in the old identification tags after his son, Harry Jas, Jr, worked for a few years in the Solomon Islands as a consultant for its jails.
“He fell in love with the place” and moved there with his two children, helping to set up a timber company, Jas said.
Five months ago, Jas said his son remarried so now he “related to what seems like half the island.”
Since his son has been in Munda, a major city on New Georgia island, Jas has visited twice.
He said he’s met four Munda men who have collected dog tags and other war-related items, including anti-aircraft guns.
“I would like to see if I can convince them to put their collections into a local war memorial or museum,” Jas said. “That would give them jobs and be good for tourism.”
If anyone would like to help Jas with his effort, send an email to scollins@bristolpress.com.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

A soldier's story

Though Ezebius Joseph Kawiecki returned home to Bristol from World War II, his dog tags didn’t.
But it appears that more than 60 years after the metal identification card was left behind on a South Pacific island, it may soon be headed home to Connecticut.
After a story appeared in Tuesday’s Bristol Press, the long-dead soldier’s son and nephew each contacted the paper, filling in the details of Kawiecki’s post-war life.
Harwinton resident Charles Kawiecki, the soldier’s son, said his father never said much about the war.
“He made it back and had a family,” his son said. “I don’t know a whole lot about his actual experiences.”
Kawiecki served in the South Pacific and got a Purple Heart, his son said.
But nephew Ron Kawiecki said he heard at least one war story from another soldier in his uncle’s unit.
While fighting in the Pacific against the Japanese, Kawiecki shared a foxhole with a lieutenant, his nephew recalled hearing, when an enemy soldier leaped in, swinging a sword.
The lieutenant died and Kawiecki wound up with cuts to his neck and a finger during the struggle. But the Bristol man managed to kill the Japanese soldier with a jackknife, Ron Kawiecki said.
Charles Kawiecki said the story fits with what little he knows.
He said his father had injured his left pinkie and “could never really bend it all the way” because of some kind of hand-to-hand fighting in the war.
Ron Kawiecki said he remembers hearing that his uncle fought in a ski patrol against the Germans as well as serving in the Pacific Theater.
An Australian man, Harry Jas, said that Kawiecki’s dog tags were found on the island of New Georgia in the Solomon Islands.
During the summer of 1943, Connecticut troops from Kawiecki’s unit were among those who landed on the Japanese-held island in a bid to take two major enemy bases. It took six weeks of hard fighting, but American forces succeeded in taking their objectives.
Jas said he’s trying to track down relatives or veterans of the war so that he can return the tags he possesses and send “a picture of the local who found them.”
“That’s something,” said Charles Kawiecki, adding that he would be happy to receive his father’s old dog tags.
According to the National Archives’ World War II Army enlistment records, Kawiecki had a grammar school education and worked as an inspector before joining the military.
Genealogist Jeff Walden said that the 1930 Census lists a widower named Mitchell Kawiecki on Union Street who had two sons and a daughter named Freida. One of the sons was Joseph, age 15.
Alfreida Kawiecki of Main Street was listed on the lost dog tag as the person to contact if something happened to her brother.
Frieda Kawiecki, who lives in Meriden, said Tuesday that she doesn’t remember too much about her brother.
Kawiecki signed up as a private in the Connecticut National Guard in February 1941, about 10 months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and plunged the nation into war.
Ezebius Kawiecki, called Joe or Whitey by friends, worked at New Departure after the war, loved to fish, married and had two children, his son said.
Following his death in 1981, Kawiecki was buried in West Cemetery in Bristol, where he lived his entire life except for the war years. His wife, Maryanna, is buried beside him.
The Press is trying to arrange for the return of the dog tags to Charles Kawiecki.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Bristol dog tags found in South Pacific

A few days ago, an Australian contacted the newspaper looking for help to return dog tags found on a South Pacific island to a Bristol man who fought in World Ward II.
Harry Jas said he possesses the metal identification tag that belonged to E.J Kawiecki, whose next of kin was listed as Alfrieda Kawiecki 257 Main St. Bristol.
The tags apparently belonged to Ezebius J. Kawiecki, who signed up as a private in the Connecticut National Guard in February 1941, about 10 months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and plunged the nation into war.
According to the National Archives’ World War II Army enlistment records, Kawiecki had a grammar school education and worked as an inspector before joining the military.
Social Security records show he was born in 1915 and died in Bristol in 1981.
It’s not clear whether he has any family remaining in the area. Calls to several Kawieckis have not been returned yet.
The address listed on the dog tags is for an apartment building across the street from the Main Library.
There is no connection to former state Rep. Ed Krawiecki, Jr, who said his family saw service in Africa and Europe during World War II but not in the Pacific against the Japanese.
Jas said the dog tags were found on the island of New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, the most famous of which is Guadalcanal, where a major battle was fought between the Americans and Japan.
Jas said that he has a dozen tags from U.S. military personnel that were apparently found by people who live on the islands.
He said he’s trying to track down relatives or veterans of the war so that he can return the tags and send “a picture of the local who found them.”
If anyone has any information about Kawiecki, I’d sure love to hear it. I’d be happy to pass on anything that anyone knows to Jas.

Update on Tuesday, 11 a.m.: A local genealogist, Jeff Walden, found some interesting material.
He said that the 1930 Census lists a widower named Mitchell Kawiecki on Union Street who had two sons and a daughter named Freida. One of the sons was Joseph, age 15.
It could be, he speculated, that E.J. Kawiecki went by a middle name of Joseph, which is certainly a reasonable guess.
So it’s possible that he was known as Joseph or Joe Kawiecki.
The Alfreida listed as EJ Kawiecki’s contact on the dog tag might well have been his sister in that case. She was 9 years old in 1930, which would make her about 87 today, if she’s still alive.
Any of this help anyone further identify anyone involved?

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com