NOTE: Last name is also spelled Kacinski
DOB/DOD: July 1, 1912 (Bayonne, NJ) – August 19, 1943; 33 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married to Anna R. Novak (1908-2002) on May 30, 1934, in New Haven. After her husband’s death, she remarried in 1947 to John Wenk, in New Haven.
CHILDREN: One son, Henry P. [Air Force veteran] (1935-1980)
OCAL ADDRESS: 106 Poplar Street, New Haven
ENLISTMENT: July 4, 1943
SERVICE NUMBER: Z-319227
FAMILY: William W. (1889-1965) and Katherine Drosdorika Kaczynski (?). No known siblings.
CIRCUMSTANCES: The S.S. J. Pinckney Henderson was a U.S. Liberty Ship named after J. Pinckney Henderson, the first governor of Texas. While on her maiden voyage, she collided with the tanker S.S. J. H. Senior off Newfoundland during the war. The J. Pinckney Henderson, carrying magnesium and oil, collided with the tanker SS J.H. Senior, which was carrying aviation gas. Both ships were set ablaze due to an aviation fuel fire. All crewmen on both ships, except for nine crew members, were lost.
Memorialized on a monument at St. Stanislaus Church, 804 State Street, New Haven, Connecticut
Memorialized at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, 2900 Sheridan Road, St. Louis, Missouri
Of the 67 crew members and naval personnel aboard the J. Pinckney Henderson, 64 were lost. The recovered bodies were initially buried in a mass grave in Harwood Hill Cemetery in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where a monument was erected. In 1949, the remains of 50 merchant marine and Navy personnel were exhumed, returned to the United States, and buried in a mass grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Group 3100 GB-1.
