“Spirit of Poles”: Seven Brothers among the Thirty-Three Who Fought WWII

"And hell was indeed what these women and their boys were fighting. Not only were they battling for freedom in America, but they had a special concern for what was happening in their native Poland. Their beloved nation had been the site of the start of World War II. On September 1, 1939, just one week after the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Nazis invaded Poland from the West, followed by the Soviet Red Army invading from the East two-and-a-half weeks later. World War II was on. Over the next several years, Poland’s people would be slaughtered, suffering a higher proportion of death than any country in all of World War II. Poland also had a huge Jewish population, which was corralled into dens of unspeakable evil, such as Treblinka and the Warsaw Ghetto. When the Nazis were finally defeated, Poland’s reward was 44 more years of totalitarian occupation, this time by communists."

Seven Brothers: A World War II Story | The American Spectator

By Paul Kengor – 5.23.15

Six Polish immigrant mothers in the Pittsburgh area — 33 sons fighting in WWII

This time last year for The American Spectator, I wrote about the five Bailey brothers of World War II: Dick, Jim, Fonnie, John, and Fred. They were from Western Pennsylvania, my neck of the woods. All served in World War II. We’ve all heard of the Ryan brothers in “Saving Private Ryan” and perhaps the Sullivan brothers in the old black-and-white film “The Fighting Sullivans.” And we know from these movies that the U.S. military resolved to never again take the risk of exposing so many of one mother’s sons to the risk of death in one war.

And yet, there they were, all five Bailey boys. Not one was granted a desk job on the home-front. All five volunteered for combat after Pearl Harbor and all five faced—Europe, the Pacific, Northern Africa; by land, by air, by sea.

Imagine: Five brothers in one war.

I was pretty impressed by this, and still am, of course. So, imagine my surprise when a reader of that column sent me a package regarding his seven brothers who served in World War II. Yes, seven brothers in one war.

“Dear Professor Kengor,” wrote Ted Walters of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, “Your article about the family whose five sons served in WW II was interesting. You might be interested to know about families in Western Pennsylvania who had more than five sons who served in WW II.”

Whoa. Ted Walters had my attention.

“My mother, Stella Pietkiewicz, had seven sons serve in WW II,” he continued. “She had the honor to christen the plane, Spirit of Poles, because she had the most sons who served in WW II.” ...

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