The Marlborough
Historical Society

    Kosmas was born the 30th of May 1920 in Marlborough, Massachusetts.  The second of five children born to Paskalis and Magdeline Kapetanopolis.  He made his home with his parents and worked at 31 Florence court while working at the Diamond Shoe Company. He enlisted into the Army the 5th of February 1942.  He received his basic training and was assigned to the 24th Armored Engineer Battalion of the 4th Armored Division.  He trained with his new unit at Pine Camp, New York, Camp Ibis Desert Training Center on the California/Arizona border and Camp Bowie, Texas before departing for the United Kingdom in late 1943.

    Following a few months of training, the entire division landed at Utah Beach the 11th of July 1944 and began their mechanized push through France.  Shortly after the German surprise attack in the Ardennes known as the Battle of the Bulge, Kosmas and his fellow soldiers attacked German positions around Bastogne in Belgium.  On the 28th of December 1944 while helping to relieve the attacks on the beleaguered paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Kosmas was killed in action following an artillery attack on his companies position.  Originally buried in France, his remains were repatriated to the United States in 1949 and he is buried at the Beverly National Cemetery in Beverly, New Jersey.  Kapetanopolis Square in Marlborough is named in his honor.

< back to Memorial Honor Roll list