Bernard James Omiecinski was born 10 April 1918 in Dillonvale, Ohio. He was the youngest of eight children of Valentine Omiecinski and Mary Ann Rypka. His parents and his two oldest siblings were born in Poland. The family was Catholic. Bernard completed three years of high school and began his occupation as a painter. He married Kathryn A Sekula, who was also of Polish descent, about 1942.

Bernard’s draft registration described him as six-foot one inch tall, 187 pounds, with a ruddy complexion, brown hair, and gray eyes. He had a scar on his left cheek. He enlisted 26 May 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio, in the US Army 38th Infantry Regiment. He reached the rank of Sergeant. The 38th Infantry Regiment arrived in England on 18 October 1943 and landed in France June 7, 1944. They fought in Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe.

Bernard was hit in the leg and shoulder by fragments of an artillery shell during battle in Tinchebray, Orne, Lower Normandy, France, on 13 August 1944. His body was returned home and was buried in the Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio. Kathryn remarried in 1952 to John F Kowalczyk. She died in 1989 in Garfield Heights, Ohio, and was buried in the All Saints Cemetery in Northfield, Ohio.

REFERENCES

Cuyahoga County, Ohio, U.S., Marriage Records and Indexes, 1810-1973.

United States Census, 1920, 1940.

WWII Draft Registration Cards

U.S., World War II Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954

U.S., Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945.

United States Headstone Applications for U.S. Military Veterans, 1925-1949.

Cleveland Press.

Findagrave.com

Bernard J Omiecinski