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Private Walter J. Koscianski of 966 Bulson Street, Camden, served with the 63rd Signal Battalion. Born in Philadelphia in 1905, the oldest son of Polish immigrant parents, he drove a truck for the City of Camden's Highway and Parks Departments for five years before his induction in June 1942, and died on February 6, 1943 while driving a truck in Algiers. He is buried at the North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia.
Technician 5th Class Stephen V. Koscianski of 966 Bulson Street, Camden, served with the 31st Signal Construction Company. Born in Philadelphia in 1907 to Polish immigrant parents, he ran an auto salvage and used car business beside the family home before his induction in October 1942, and was lost on November 27, 1943 when the troopship HMT Rohna was sunk in the Mediterranean.
Twelve soldiers from Camden County, NJ died when the troop transport HMT Rohna was struck by a German guided glider bomb and sank off the coast of North Africa on November 26, 1943 — one of the greatest maritime disasters of World War II.
The War Department's June 13, 1944 casualty list named fifteen South Jersey men killed and two missing, among them Corporal Stephen V. Koscianski of 966 Bulson Street, Camden — one of twelve on the list who had been lost with the troopship HMT Rohna in the Mediterranean seven months earlier.
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.
The Camden Courier-Post reported that the parents of Pvt. Walter J. Koscianski of Bulson Street had been notified by the War Department that their son was killed in North Africa; confirmation came when a V-mail letter sent to him by John Emmel of 905 Sylvan Street was returned marked "Deceased, return to sender."