PFC Frank Anthony Zawicki

courtesy of Frogman

PFC Frank Anthony Zawicki was born 1 Sep 1919 in Meriden, Connecticut. He was the 3rd of the 9 children born to Daniel Peter and Anna (Astromowicz) Zawacki. Frank was apparently the only member of his family to adopt this spelling of the name and it appears on all his adult paperwork. Daniel and Anna had both immigrated from Poland in 1913 settling in Meriden where they met and married in November 1915. Daniel built the small (1470 square feet) frame house at 144 Oak Street in Meriden in 1920 where the family would live for the next 46 years. The family were adherents of the Greek Orthodox church and attended Saints Peter and Paul Church about 1½-miles to the north of their home. Frank attended Saint Stanislaw parochial school and then the Wilcox Technical School. He then went to work as a gas station attendant earning $150 in 1939 before starting work for the New Departure plant of General Motors Corporation.

Frank was drafted in February 1942. After his basic military training he had some assignment stateside before being sent to England in mid-1943. Once there he was assigned to A Company 116th Infantry. Once with the unit he would have participated in the training in which the regiment was preparing for the amphibious assault on the Normandy beaches and invasion of Nazi occupied France. PFC Zawicki made the assault with the unit on 6 Jun 1944 and was killed in action that day by artillery fire.

PFC Zawicki rests forever in the Normandy American Cemetery. 

Frank's older brother, Anthony Theodore Joseph Zawacki served in the Army in the Pacific theater and younger brother, John Stanley Zawacki, served in the Army in Europe.