World War II Hero To Be Laid to Rest on Veterans Day

Before Casimer J. Kubicki built his home in Oak Lawn, where he raised his family and lived three doors down from St. Catherine of Alexandria for more than six decades, he lived a whole other life as a soldier in the U.S. Army,

As a young man, Kubicki dashed across North Africa and Europe under the command of General George S. Patton, Jr., so it is entirely fitting that this World War II hero is being laid to rest on Veterans Day.

Kubick, known as Casey to family, friends and neighbors, died from complications due to a fall on Nov. 7. He was “92 years young.”

On Sunday night during his visitation at Heartland Memorial Center in Tinley Park, the World War II combat veteran received a 21-gun salute in the parking lot, and the playing of Taps. Members of the U.S. Army folded and presented the American flag to Kubicki’s wife of 66 years, Josephine.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Kubicki’s granddaughter Jamie Thomas said. “My grandfather was an amazing man whose story needs to be told.”

Kubicki, named for the great Polish general, Casimir Pulaski, was born at home in a Chicago South Side bungalow on Jan. 31, 1922. The son of Polish immigrants, he watched his mother and father struggle to make ends meet while growing up during the Great Depression.

Like many of his contemporaries from the ‘Greatest Generation,” Kubicki did not go on to high school after finishing grammar school.

Kubicki never liked to talk about his war-time experiences, they were horrors best forgotten. He was one of 19 surviving members out of a division of 220 at the end of the war. Eventually, however, he revealed enough anecdotes that his family was able to piece together his amazing story of fighting with the Third Army under the command of a madman named "Georgie Patton."

In 1942, when he was 20 years old, Army Pfc. Casey Kubicki, an expert gunner and combat engineer, shipped out to North Africa, where he participated in the Allied Operation Torch landings under the command of General Patton.

After pushing the Germans out of North Africa, Kubicki marched with Patton across Europe, participating in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. In conjunction with the British Eighth Army, Sicily was returned back to its citizens.

“It took 23 days to invade Sicily,” Thomas said. “Most people don’t know that it was much like the D-Day invasion of Normandy.”

Kubicki continued under Patton’s command in the Third Army, covering 600 miles across France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

He was among the first U.S. troops to enter the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. He dug trenches to bury the hundreds of bodies found stackeded inside the camp.

“The war changed his life that moment on,” Thomas said. “He always said that until he got to Buchenwald, ‘I didn’t know what I was fighting for.’”

He also led local German civilians on tours of the death camp, a policy instituted by Patton, so that the civilians had a full understanding of what had taken place inside the walls of Buchenwald.

Kubicki returned home to Chicago. While working at a neighborhood plant, he met a lovely German girl from Nebraska named Josephine, who would become the love of his life. They married in 1947.

Soon after, Kubicki purchased an empty lot in Oak Lawn in 1951, where he built a home from the ground up.

In 1957, he volunteered to help build the chapel and office of a new parish being built three doors down from his house, St. Catherine of Alexandria.

Proud of his military service, Kubicki hung the American flag outside his home every day. In 2009, Kubicki, along with other World War II veterans, flew to Washington, D.C., with Honor Flight Chicago to "see our memorial."

“My grandfather worked incredibly hard,” Thomas said. “He was an engineer and worked two jobs. He was ethical and loved people. He was a true hero. I idolized him.”

In addition to his wife, Josephine, Kubicki leaves five children: Michael, Susan Willeford, John, Janet (Bill) Hunoway and Jim Kubicki.

Kubicki was the loving grandfather of 10 grandchildren, and 10 great grandchildren; and uncle to many nieces and nephews. He is predeceased by his parents and four siblings.

A funeral has been set for 10:30 a.m. today (Monday), from Tinley Park to St. Catherine’s at 10621 S. Kedvale for an 11:30 a.m. funeral Mass. Entombment is at the Resurrection Mausoleum, in Justice. In lieu of flowers, his family requests that Masses be said in his name.