Gustave Dziengowski
Technical Sergeant Gustave Dziengowski had lived at 1476 Louis Street, in the mostly Polish neighborhood anchored by St. Joseph's Catholic Church. As a child he had graduated from the Bonsall School and Camden High School, where he starred in football and basketball. He also attended Camden Commercial College. He worked for Public Service Gas and Electric for 12 years before being inducted into the Army on April 7, 1942.
Gustave Dziengowski qualified for the Army Air Corps. He had graduated the Army Air Force radio and gunnery courses, and was probably due to be promoted to Technical Sergeant. Another report has him as a Staff Sergeant. The War Department casualty report of 1946 lists him as a private, however. Nine months after his enlistment, while on a test flight to White City, KS, his plane caught fire and crashed. He was 32 years of age when he died, on January 6th, 1943.
At 1735 CWT, a Consolidated B-24D suffered a catastrophic structural failure of the tail section and crashed three miles west of White City, Kansas, killing 11 passengers and crew. Navigator-rated passenger 2Lt. Frank Maleckas parachuted to safety and was uninjured. The B-24 took off from the Army Air Base at Topeka, Kansas, at 1710 on an instrument training flight to Pueblo, Colorado. The airplane climbed to an altitude of 5,500 feet when it began picking up ice in the overcast. A crewmember in the rear of the airplane notified the pilots that the tail section was picking up a thick coating of ice. The pilot acknowledged the warning and said, "Do not worry." The airplane began losing altitude rapidly. The pilot ordered the crew and passengers to put on parachutes and to stand by to bail out. Lt. Maleckas stood by in the nose section and after noticing that the airplane was beginning to shudder violently he pulled the emergency hatch lever and bailed out. He stated that the pilot gave no order to abandon ship. Investigation of the wreckage indicated that the port horizontal stabilizer, elevator, vertical fin and rudder had separated from the airplane in one piece. The B-24 then dove straight ahead into the ground and exploded violently into flames. The severed port tail section was found over one-half mile from the scene of the main wreckage. Lt. Maleckas parachuted safely to the ground and ran to the wreckage immediately, but was kept away by exploding bombs, bullets and flares. The occupants had all been killed instantly. Investigators speculated that the structural failure was caused by an excessive amount of ice stressing the tail section and causing it to fail. Killed in the crash were: 1Lt. Robert Clyne, pilot; 2Lt. Norman A. Kendell, co-pilot; 2Lt. Joseph P. Hudder, navigator; 2Lt. Clifford A. Smallwood, bombardier; SSgt. Vernon A. Larson, engineer; SSgt. Thomas P. Merlino, radio operator; 2Lt. Alden A. Alleman, pilot-rated passenger; F/O James G. Masters, pilot-rated passenger; 2Lt. John Sedor, Jr., bombardier-rated passenger; SSgt. Leonard F. MacNabb, engineer-rated passenger; SSgt. Gustav Dzingoski, radio operator-rated passenger.
Staff Sergeant Dzingoski was survived by his mother, Mrs. Stella Wanat, a brother John, and two sisters, Wanda and Mary, and his fiancée, Miss Violet Boos, of Gloucester City, NJ.
Gustave Dzingoski is memorialized at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, 10th & Mechanic Street in Camden, NJ, and at Cooper River Park in Pennsauken, NJ as Gustave Dziengowski.
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Polish Heroes War Memorial
The Polish Heroes War Memorial at Cooper River Park in Pennsauken, N.J. (Park Drive and Route 130) unites three monuments — to Casimir Pulaski (1936, moved here 1984), Thaddeus Kosciusko (1984), and, since 1995, the members of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church of South Camden who died in World War II.
St. Joseph's Parish WWII War Memorial
A bronze plaque in the vestibule of St. Joseph Church at 10th and Liberty Streets in Camden, presented by the Catholic War Veterans, St. Joseph's Post 418, and dedicated April 3, 1949, honoring the parish's heroic war dead of World War II.
St. Joseph's Church Keeps in Touch with Men and Women in Armed Forces
A 1944 Camden Courier-Post feature by Frank Sheridan on St. Joseph's Church (the Polish parish at Tenth and Mechanic Streets), whose 1,154 mothers gave sons and daughters to the war — four killed, two missing, one a prisoner — among them Joseph Piotrowski, lost when the cruiser Helena was sunk at Kula Gulf.
1150 Camden Poles In Service Honored
A service flag honoring 1,150 St. Joseph's Parish men and women in the armed forces was unfurled at Tenth and Mechanic Streets, where Mayor Brunner pinned gold stars on the mothers and a brother of parishioners killed or missing in World War II. Courier-Post, August 31, 1943.
Funeral Tomorrow for Sgt. Dzingoski
A January 1943 Camden Courier-Post notice that Sgt. Gus Dzingoski — the first World War II casualty of St. Joseph's Catholic Church — would be buried with full military honors, with an American Legion ritual in his mother's home and a Solemn High Mass of Requiem at the church.
Camden Man Killed with 10 in Air Crash
A January 1943 Camden Courier-Post report that Sgt. Gus Dzingoski, 31, of 1476 Louis Street was one of 11 army men killed when a bomber crashed at White City, Kansas, while returning to its base at Topeka.