Drapinski, Roman
(Aug. 27, 1918 - July 18, 1943)
Fallen warriorLittle remains of the Drapinski family and a thriving shipyard in Camden, New Jersey. It was in the shipyard that Stanislaus Drapinski and other persons from Poland learned to build warships before World War l. He reared a family on a blacksmith's wages in a section of Camden called "Polishtown," where the shipbuilders and other Polish families raised over $100,000 in 1913 to build the only church of its kind in the Delaware Valley.
Without documentation, it's hard to figure out the Drapinski family. The name itself came from drapac, which means "to scratch, scrape, or scamper away" (Hoffman, 230), and 576 persons in Poland were named Drapinski in 1990. Not enough reliable information is known of the Drapinski family in Camden to satisfy this writer. Names and ages vary too much.
Roman Drapinski was born in Camden on August 28, 1918, and grew up in Poland, where he received all his schooling, and on September 1, 1938, when he returned to the United States, he could barely speak English with the passengers on the SS Batory from Gdynia, Poland, to New York. His parents and one brother remained in Poland, and one brother or half brother, Adam, who came from Poland as a small child and was probably the stepson of Stanislaus Drapinski, stayed in Camden, where he eventually married, and went into the meat business. For many years Adam, fifteen years older than Roman, lived on the same street where he grew up. Roman, who was mechanically inclined, lived with him and kept the trucks that delivered meat to stores in the Delaware Valley in good condition. As Adam told a reporter of the Camden Courier-Post, the Army would not enlist Roman in 1940 because he was not fluent in English.
Nevertheless, whether or not he knew much English, the Army inducted him at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on October 23, 1941, and easily increased his knowledge of English and targeted him for armored combat. Following the successes of German armored units in Poland and France the U.S. Army wanted to increase its fire power and mobility by forming armored divisions as fast as possible. Unfortunately it did not have until it found a training ground of 102,414 acres, one third in Kentucky and two thirds in Tennessee, to accommodate one armored division. The military reservation was named Fort Campbell after a former Tennessee governor.
One wonders whether Drapinski was one of the first soldiers at the post. Beginning in the summer of 1942, one officer and 19 enlisted men arrived from Fort Knox, Kentucky, where the 8th Armored Division was activated on April 1, 1942, and by September they developed the 12th Armored Division. Somehow Drapinski, who knew enough English in time to advance to corporal, technical sergeant, and staff sergeant, served in both divisions. He was a grenade instructor at Fort Campbell when he got a grenade that didn't work. It exploded prematurely and injured him. He died the following day in the post hospital.
His death stunned the Polish families of Camden. Practically every family had someone in the service. St. Joseph's parish had records of 1154 sons and daughters in military uniforms, and the pastor, Ret. Rev. Arthur B. Strenski, and his assistants, Rev. Leon S. Winowicz, Rev. Lawrence Faber, and Rev. Henry Blasczynski, rarely missed a week without solemn ceremonies for their safe return. They buried Staff Sgt. Drapinski in the parish cemetery at Chews Landing, seven miles from Camden, with military honors. Eventually, on April 3, 1949, the Catholic War Veterans, Post 418, dedicated a bronze plaque in the vestibule of the Polish church with the names of their fallen heroes of World War II. Ironically, instead of Roman Drapinski, his first name is listed as Raymond on the Roll of Honor.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2009)