NAVARRE MAN JOINS SAINTHOOD EFFORT

John Dabrowski, a retired Army colonel and Department of Defense historian who now lives in Navarre, has become part of an effort to see a Roman Catholic chaplain, who parachuted into France on D-Day during World War II, be canonized as a saint. Reverend Ignatius Maternowski joined the Franciscan religious order in 1932 and enlisted in the Army in 1942, leaving his work as a parish priest to serve in World War II as a chaplain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He parachuted into France and died in the early hours of the D-Day invasion after being shot by a German sniper. The effort to seek sainthood for Maternowski is in the early stages and could take years.