Hometown: Plains, PA
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Company H, 60th Infantry Division
Military Honors: Purple Heart 
Date of Sacrifice: August 6, 1944 - KIA in Saint-Lô, France
Age: 19 
Conflict: World War II, 1939-1945

Bernard Leo Krysiewski was born on July 7, 1925, in Plains, Pennsylvania—20 miles southwest of Scranton. There he attended Plains Memorial High School, leaving school during his junior year. He and his family were members of St. Peter and Paul’s Church.

As a young man, Bernard had worked as a “coal breaker” for the Conlon Coal Company near his hometown. According to History Daily:

“Specifically hired for their small hands, ‘breaker boys’ were young boys, usually between the ages of 8 and 12 years old, employed to sort out mined coal into relatively uniform sized pieces by hand and separating out impurities such as rock, slate, sulfur, clay, and soil. Often injured or cut from the coal shards and chutes, the job of breaker boy was one of the entry-level jobs for those who would later become full-fledged miners (if they remained uninjured).”

Krysiewski also worked at the Blue Ribbon Noodle Company before entering the service.

He joined the U.S. Army on November 13 of 1943 and completed basic training at Camp Croft, South Carolina. After spending a two-week furlough at home in April of 1944, Krysiewski was sent to Fort Meade, Maryland. From there, he and his unit—Company H of the 60th Infantry Division—left for England in June.

An expert machine-gunner, PFC Krysiewski was part of the Allied invasion to liberate France from German occupation. In the months following the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion, both the Germans and the Americans coveted the strategically important French town of Saint-Lô, 50 miles inland from the English Channel and the Allied beachhead.

All major roads in the area led through Saint-Lô, making the Normandy town a crucial access point for both the Allied and Axis armies to move men, equipment, and supplies. As the Allies moved to free the European continent from German control, Hitler and his forces defended Saint-Lô with an elite Parachute Division unit and an Infantry Division.

The battle to take Saint-Lô took place between July 7 and 19 of 1944. Fighting through the hedgerow embankments was bloody as combatants engaged in close combat. The town was destroyed, more than 11,000 American GIs were lost, and German casualties are estimated to be similar. About a thousand French citizens were killed.

The Americans had taken their objective. Though Saint-Lô was in ruins, the hub of a network of seven roads was crucial in launching the Allied forces into Europe and ending World War II.

A telegram sent by J.A. Ulio, Adjutant General of the U.S. War Department, informed Bernard Krysiewski’s parents that their son had been killed near Saint-Lô on August 6, 1944—just nine months after he entered the service, and less than a month after his 19th birthday. His last letter home was dated July 30, 1944.

PFC Bernard Krysiewski was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart medal.

Sources
Details submitted by Ronald Krysiewski, PFC Krysiewski’s nephew
Artist’s rendering by Craig Du Mez, from original photo
Wilkes-Barre Record, September 1, 1944: 3 Men Dead; 4 Missing in War Action
Wilkes-Barre Record, September 9, 1948: Body Due Friday
D-Day Info: The Battle of Saint-Lô
Battle of Normandy Tours: The Battle of the Hedgerows and the Capture of St Lô
History Daily: The Breaker Boys of the Past
Burial Site: Find a Grave