WWII dog tag found in Czech Republic traced back to Massachusetts
By Mike Sullivan, WBZ-TV
NEW BEDFORD - A family in the Czech Republic needs your help to reunite a lost dog tag with a veteran's family.
Jaroslav Sevcik and his family were metal detecting in a forest in the western part of the country. That's when his mother's device began to ping. They found the dog tag a buried a few centimeters under the ground. It reads Walter Chadwick.
"It's basically the city that was liberated by the American Army during World War II," Sevcik said. "I supposed there was a unit in the US Army in WWII where this guy let's say lost this dog tag there."
He posted a picture of the tag on Reddit. Other users were able to track the tag to the veteran who is buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in New Bedford. He died in 1955 and is buried next to Julia Chadwick. She died in 1997, and according to records, is the woman who ordered Walter Chadwick's headstone.
"I'm surprised that you can find small things such as ID from the World War, and you can find so many things on the internet about this one person who was in Czechia almost 100 years ago," says Sevcik.
This is the second dog tag the Sevcik family has found in that area. Coincidentally, the other has since been reunited with a family in Wakefield. Now they are hoping you can help them connect this tag with a living member of Chadwick's family.