Popchock Ed und Steinmetz Karl

Ed Popchock

1925-2008

Born on December 1, 1925

 In Bens Creek, Cambria County, PA, he joined the United States Navy at 17.

He served as a radioman on the Destroyer „Escort Herbert C. Jones“ (DE-137), which saw action in Sicily, Anzio, the Mediterranean, and the North Atlantic.

Karl Steinmetz

1915-1973

An American told me that his father, Ed Popchock, was a sailor in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was aboard a ship supporting the landing on the south coast of France

on August 14, 1944, near St Raphael.

When it was safe to go ashore, Ed and other sailors came upon a gun emplacement.

Nearby, there was a covered body.

Ed went into the bunker and saw a German soldier's jacket and in the jacket he found a military passport with some documents inside, which he later took back to America.

This passport and the documents belonged to a Karl Steinmetz from Niederdünzebach (now part of the municipality of Eschwege near Kassel).

Ed thought that Karl Steinmetz might be the body nearby, but when the family was found, they told us that Karl Steinmetz had survived the war...... At some point during the war, Karl Steinmetz, together with seven other Wehrmacht soldiers, was made a prisoner of war in Versailles (Northern France) and shipped to America.

After that, he had to work in England in agriculture for a while.

Only on 24-12-1947, during Christmas, he came home.

He died in 1973 at the age of 58.

His family has been found.