Charles A. Rutecki
Rank: Private First Class
Branch: U.S. Army
Serial: 32269582
Unit: 168th Infantry Regiment, 34th Infantry Division
Entered the service from: New Jersey
Died:
Buried at: Plot E, Row 14, Grave 8, North Africa American Cemetery, Carthage, Tunisia
Awards: Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster
Introduction
Charles A. Rutecki
Private First Class Charles A. Rutecki was born in Pennsylvania in 1915. His father, Joseph Rutecki, had emigrated from Poland, and worked as a riveter in a shipyard. His mother, Pearl, was from Massachusetts. The third child, he had two older brothers, Edward and Theodore; brothers Martin, Wallace, Arthur and sisters Matilda and Phyllis came after. By 1930 the family had moved to Coles Road in the Blenheim section of Gloucester Township NJ. His father was a well driller at this point, and his two older brothers were working on farms. Charles Rutecki had wed in November of 1940. He and wife Edith made their home at 614 Berkeley Street in Camden NJ, where he worked at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard.
Private Rutecki was inducted into the Army in June of 1942, and went overseas in October of that year. He saw action in North Africa, and was wounded in his left shoulder on May 7, 1943. He returned to active duty and was fatally injured when a stick of dynamite exploded during a training exercise in North Africa on August 7, 1943. He was 28 at the time of his death, which was reported in the September 11, 1943 edition of the Camden Courier-Post. He was survived by his wife, mother, and siblings, of whom brothers Arthur and Wallace were serving overseas in the Navy at that point in time.
$1,000 Reward Due Wounded Soldier
Camden Courier-Post —
$1,000 Reward Due Wounded Soldier
Kin of Almonesson Man Urged Him and Brothers to Kill Foe
An Almonesson soldier, wounded in the cleaning up phases of the Tunisian campaign, and who has two brothers “somewhere” in the Pacific aboard U. S. ships, will come home to a $1,000 reward.
He is Charles Rutecki, 28, whose mother, Mrs. Pearl Rutecki, received a letter from her soldier son on the same day the War Department notified her he had been wounded on May 7 in North Africa. His letter said the wound was in his left shoulder and that he was “all right now” and expected to be back on duty within a few days.
The reward is for “getting” a Nazi, and was promised Charles, as well as his two brothers, Arthur, 20, and Wallace, 18, by Charles Hubler, of Woodlynne, who is the father-in-law of the Rutecki brothers’ sister, Mrs. Phyllis Hubler.
Reward for Jap or Nazi
Before leaving on the Atlantic ocean trip to North Africa last Fall, the Rutecki boys were urged by Hubler to “get a Jap or a Nazi,” with the promise of the reward. In the letter to his mother, Charles wrote: “Tell them I got one.”
Charles entered service in June, 1942; Arthur preceded him by two months and joined the Navy, as did Wallace last Fall.