{"id":19839,"date":"2020-02-09T19:26:05","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T19:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/02\/09\/german-city-to-honor-wwii-airman-from-scranton\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:33:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:33:31","slug":"german-city-to-honor-wwii-airman-from-scranton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/veterans\/2020\/02\/09\/german-city-to-honor-wwii-airman-from-scranton\/","title":{"rendered":"German city to honor WWII airmen executed after surviving B-17 crash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 For more than seven decades, the story of Staff Sgt. Joseph Eugene Prokop\u2019s life ended the same way: The Scranton airman died when Germans shot down his B-17 bomber near Frankfurt in the waning months of World War II. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the story the War Department told his parents and the public when Prokop\u2019s body returned to the city for burial in 1949, and it was the only story Ann Spearmint, 91, ever heard about her brother\u2019s death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the city of Hanau, Germany, prepares to honor the memory of Prokop and two other Army Air Forces members later this month, details have emerged that are rewriting that story, adding a new layer of tragedy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What historians in Hanau discovered \u2014 and what has been disclosed to Spearmint and the rest of her family for the first time \u2014 is that Joseph Prokop, then 22, survived the downing of the bomber only to be captured by the Germans and summarily executed after a Gestapo officer learned one of his crewmates was Jewish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Spearmint deals with the eruption of emotions the unexpected revelation has stirred, the Covington Twp. woman can\u2019t help but wonder what might have been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo think that he was alive and could have lived how many more years,\u201d said Spearmint, Prokop\u2019s last surviving sibling. \u201cHe was only a kid then. For them to shoot him right there, it\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Feb. 17, Hanau will mark the 75th anniversary of the killings of Prokop and his two fellow airmen \u2014 Tech. Sgt. Charles Bernard Goldstein and Tech. Sgt. Warren George Hammond \u2014 by erecting a memorial plaque with the names of the three Americans at the site of their executions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneously, North Scranton-based Gen. Theodore J. Wint Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 25 will conduct a remembrance service for Prokop at his gravesite in Cathedral Cemetery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ann
In this Jan. 24, 2020, photo, James Kuchwara, VFW Post #25 commander, gives flowers to Ann Spearmint in Scranton, Pa., to honor her brother, Staff Sgt. Joseph Eugene Prokop, who died in the waning months of World War II. (Jason Farmer\/The Times-Tribune via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Flying out of Knettishall airfield in Suffolk, England, on Feb. 17, 1945, Prokop was the waist gunner aboard the B-17 Flying Fortress when the four-engine bomber took anti-aircraft fire while pulling away from Frankfurt airspace and went down at Hanau. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fifth of eight children of John and Anna Prokop, the airman was born in 1922 and grew up in the St. Ann\u2019s section of West Scranton. His father worked for the railroad, while his mother tended to the family. The parents were no strangers to tragedy as two of their five sons died before age 3. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prokop joined in the Army in 1939, setting his sights on the Air Corps. Because her brother was only 17, Spearmint said, their parents had to sign off on his enlistment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy parents knew about the war in Europe and all, and they figured that one way or the other we were going to get into it,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen it happened, he was already in the service.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\t