Efforts are under way to add slain police officer to Bethel Park’s Veterans Memorial
The Bethel Park veterans’ memorial stands in front of the municipal building on West Library Avenue. Council is looking to add Joseph Chmelynski to the list.
Joseph Chmelynski
To hear Bethel Park Councilman Mark J. O’Brien tell the story, the effort to honor Joseph Chmelynski for his military service during World War II all started several months ago in the cookie aisle at Walmart on Library Road.
It was there that O’Brien ran into William Knaus, himself a World War II veteran and local businessman. And Knaus started telling stories about his childhood friend, Joseph Chmelynski.
Sure, everyone knew about Chmelynski. The Bethel Park police officer was shot responding to a burglary call on Broughton Road. He died five days later, on March 9, 1948. But what is not known about Chmelynski, who was 26 when he died, was his distinguished record in the military, O’Brien said.
“Knaus told me a whole other side,” O’Brien said. “He was a decorated U.S. Army veteran and was wounded in World War II. No one had been aware of his military career.”
O’Brien said Knaus, now 95, met Chmelynski on the battlefield north of Rome. Knaus, O’Brien said, was so impressed with his childhood friend that he included him on strategy talks about how best to break the German line. Sometime after that, Chmelynski, who served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, was wounded when he and another man rushed a machine gun nest.
When the war ended, O’Brien said Knaus tried to convince his friend to re-enlist. But when his father was injured in a coal mining accident, Chmelynski joined the Bethel Park police instead.
“He wanted to be able to provide for his mother, who lived on Brightwood Road,” O’Brien said.
Police caught Chmelynski’s killer, Edward DiPofi Jr., according to the Pittsburgh Press. DiPofi was executed by electric chair on Jan. 9, 1950.
O’Brien said the Bethel Park Veterans Memorial committee is attempting to raise $500 for a memorial that recognizes Chmelynski’s military service. The paver would be erected at the municipality’s Veterans Memorial that sits in front of the municipal building. It has five granite walls, surrounded by flags from the various military branches, and bears the names of approximately 3,000 honorably discharged veterans with residential ties to Bethel Park.
“It’s for anyone from Bethel Park who was honorably discharged and has or had been a resident for five years,” O’Brien said. “The names on the memorial are a community effort.”
But Chmelynski’s name had been left off the memorial, said O’Brien, adding that no one had been aware that he had served in the U.S. Army.
“It’s important that we do not forget and tell the story of the people who gave so much,” he said. “It is up to us not to forget.”
Ideally, O’Brien said he would like to have the money for the memorial paver raised before Veteran’s Day. That’s when he would like to have it dedicated.
“It’s a way to bring him back to life,” O’Brien said. “It makes him a real person, even if it is for one day. That is why we do what we do.”