Chester J. Gdowik
Chester J. Gdowik
Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army
Serial: 32758800
Unit: 6th Armored Infantry Battalion, 1st Armored Division
Entered service from: New Jersey
Died: , Italy
Burial: St. Joseph Cemetery, 240 Lower Landing Road, Blackwood, NJ
Awards: Purple Heart
Biography
Private First Class Chester Gdowik, the son of Ludwik and Mary Gdowik of 947 Jackson Street, Camden, NJ, was born on February 2, 1923. He attended St. Joseph’s Parochial School in Camden and Camden County Vocational Technical School in Pennsauken, NJ. An active athlete, he participated in various track, football, and basketball games. He worked in the machine shop at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyards in Camden before his induction into the Army.
After being called up, Chester Gdowik trained at Fort Dix, NJ, and Camp Croft at Spartanburg, SC, before being assigned to the 6th Armored Infantry Battalion, 1st Armored Division. Private Gdowik saw active duty in North Africa and in Italy, where he was killed in action on May 25, 1944.
Chester Gdowik was survived by his parents, and his brother John.
This bench, bearing the name of Chester Gdowik, is located at the St. Joseph Parish of South Camden NJ WWII Memorial, at Cooper River Park, Route 130 North and Park Drive, in Pennsauken, NJ.
Military Rites Set For Pvt. Gdowik
Camden Courier-Post —
A full military funeral will be accorded Pvt. Chester J. Gdowik, killed in action in Italy, Saturday.
Private Gdowik died at the battlefront on May 25, 1944. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Gdowik, of 947 Jackson Street, where friends may meet tomorrow night.
Honor guards will be posted at the bier tomorrow by Laskowski-Wojtkowiak post 74, American Legion.
High Mass will be celebrated at St. Joseph’s Church, Tenth and Mechanic streets, at 9 a.m. Saturday. Burial will be in St. Joseph’s cemetery, Chews Landing, where a squad of soldiers from Ft. Dix will pay final honors to their fallen comrade.
The South Camden hero was graduated from St. Joseph’s Parochial school and Camden County Vocational school. He was employed in the machine room at New York Ship before entering the army in May, 1943.
He received his basic training in North Carolina and five months later was in Africa, where he participated in the capture of Sardinia and later was with the U.S. troops who invaded Italy.
Veteran of one war remembers casualty of yet another
Camden Courier-Post —
Article by Stan Bednarczyk.
I must have been 4 years old. Chester, my next-door neighbor, was 10 years older. He was one of the big guys and I always looked up to him and not just because of his height.
It was he who first addressed me as “mister.” From no one else did that title hold more meaning. Then it became even more meaningful.
Chester asked me to make a muscle. When I flexed my skinny arm in response, he felt the phantom muscle and whistled in amazement. Thus with the bending of an elbow and the strutting of a make-believe muscle man, Mr. Muscles was conceived.
Sometimes he would dare me to punch him in the arm and when I did he would fall to the sidewalk, act frightened and beg for mercy. During those times, I was much taken with myself.
Other times he would just grab me by my scrawny arms, raise me and, imitating a dog’s growl, bury his face in my ticklish stomach. When I was rendered helpless, giggling silly with laughter, he would toss me into the air and catch my limp, delighted body. I continually protested, but because I had complete faith in him, I always came back for more. The trust of a child is pure gold.
These are some of the thoughts that enter my mind when I occasionally visit him among the rows of veterans’ aged, white tombstones at Saint Joseph’s Cemetery in Chews Landing. I think of what a special person he must have been to make time for skinny me when others seemed to brush me aside. I think of what a difference he might have made, what positive deeds he might have accomplished, what beautiful memories he might have breathed into future generations had not his life been so abruptly snuffed out in Italy during World War II. I think of what a fine father he might have become.
Memory is often indistinct, but I do know he was an altar boy and an athlete, a third baseman on the Falcons, a neighborhood sandlot baseball team. No organized, uniformed, fully equipped teams then. Just a group of baseball-loving kids with old bats and taped balls. They would each try to muster up 5-cent team dues to buy a 35-cent baseball cap, one at a time, for every member. Even if it took most of the summer, eventually everyone was sporting a hat with the initial F and they became a team — a proud one.
As the years went by, Chester, like so many others, had to trade in his team hat for an Army helmet.
A World War will do that.
I don’t recall too much after that except he came home on leave before they shipped him overseas. I do recall he made a fine-looking soldier, but probably a better-looking third baseman.
It was many months later, a warm morning in May, that found me in the coal bin, the front cellar of my parents’ home in Camden. I heard a car stop outside. Then a knock on my next-door neighbor’s front door. It was a Western Union messenger delivering a telegram to the mother. No one else was present in either of our homes. Seconds later, I heard the door slam and the sound of a distraught, Polish-American mother’s rapid footsteps hurrying along the sidewalk to seek a translation of a dreaded telegram.
A World War will do that, too.
When they shipped him home it was with medals and honors, but not life. The funeral was a heavy-hearted memory. A color guard led the fallen hero’s flag-draped casket down the center of Whitman Park’s South 10th Street to Joseph’s Church.
Again he was at the altar where he once so reverently served at the celebration of Mass. Now there was much reverence, but no celebrating — only sorrow and tears.
Chester began his early years serving at God’s altar. He ended his early years of manhood at the same altar, serving his country with the ultimate sacrifice at the bloody Battle of Monte Cassino.
That, too, a war will do.
Those who gave their lives in the service of their country should always be honored and cherished. Not only on each Memorial Day but throughout the year.
But we should also convey to the world leaders the folly of it all. The only thing that makes any sense is to have a war against war. We owe this to Chester, to all those whose lives have been taken from them, to future generations and to the millions who perished because of wars. No longer should we allow wars to do that. A more sensible way must be found.
Stan Bednarczyk, who lives in Audubon, is an Army veteran of the Korean War.
Photos
Grave of Chester J. Gdowik at St. Joseph Cemetery, Blackwood, NJ.