S1c Brosig Kolajajck

Brosig Kolajajck was born Dec. 4, 1915 in Grimes County in southeast Texas. His mother, Maggie Kolajajack, was a homemaker and his father, Frank Kolajajack, a farmer. The family included six children.

By 1930 the father was still identified as a farmer, and the mother and three oldest children, ages 12 to 19, as farm laborers. The spring 1940 Census had the mother back to being a homemaker. It said Brosig and a younger brother, Louis, worked in 1939 for the National Youth Administration, a Depression-era federal jobs program. Each worked 28 weeks in the gardening business and earned $195. Brosig had completed 8th grade.

He enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 8, 1940. Mr. Kolajajck was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

His body was recovered and he is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii – the Punchbowl.

It’s unclear why he and his parents spelled their last names differently. His Navy records and headstone spell it Kolajajck. His parents’ joint headstone and death records spell it Kolajajack. Their name proved even more difficult for Census takers. The 1940 Census said their last name was Kaloffck. Brosig was identified as Brosek in 1920, Brozac in 1930 and something nearly illegible in 1940 but akin to Byllsic. His mother’s birth name is spelled in two ways — Dobwinski and Dobiyanski. Family researchers, beware!

Sources: Grave markers; Census; Navy muster roll. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.