Paul Thaddeus Kuras

Paul T. Kuras, who loved his family, valiantly served his country in three wars as a proud Marine and never wavered in his awe of aviation, passed away peacefully in his sleep from natural causes on Dec. 18, 2021, in San Antonio, three weeks shy of his 94th birthday.

Pauls keen intelligence, imagination and enjoyment of cultures, languages and classical music propelled him to travel the world and contribute to cherished causes. "Not bad for the son of Polish immigrants and a boy who grew up on the railroad tracks" in Chicago, hed often say.

Paul was born when passenger aviation came to life, a year after Charles Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The boy who kept a scrapbook of airplane photos cut from the daily newspaper later remarked that over his long life he met pioneering pilots to astronauts.

His passion for airplanes piloted his career as an aviation engineer.

He enlisted during World War II and served 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was being trained to invade Japan before the surrender. When he was sent to Japan in the 1950s, he volunteered to help orphans.

Gunnery Sgt. Paul T. Kuras was deployed to Korea and Vietnam, serving on land and on aircraft carriers. He lost much of his hearing by sleeping on the tarmac to be closer to the airplanes he would evaluate for repairs, and, for the rest of his life, he carried shrapnel in his chest from a skirmish.

Paul mostly served at the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Orange County, California, where he met many of his longtime friends and appreciated that he "didnt have to put up with Chicagos cold winters," he said.

He then worked 24 years with the McDonnell Douglas aerospace corporation, which merged with Boeing. He commuted to the facility in Long Beach, California, and was often dispatched to work with customers in London, Paris, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Beijing and Singapore.

Paul loved traveling but he and his former wife, the late Nancy McGrath, raised their four children, Charmaine, Loretta, Janet and Paul Jr., in Orange County, first in Anaheim and then in nearby Tustin.

After he retired, Paul lived on his "gentlemans" farm in Fallbrook, California, then moved in 2002 to be near his sister, philanthropist Jane Kuras Brandecker, in Green Valley, Arizona.

During visits, Pauls grandsons joined in his tours of the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, where Paul volunteered for 10 years as a docent. He also made sure his family and friends were able to climb aboard John F. Kennedy's Air Force One and see other retired aircraft at the "Boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Jane passed away at age 96 in 2010 and in 2015, Paul moved to San Antonio.

Paul truly enjoyed the last six years of his life at the Towers retirement community in San Antonio and continued to exhibit his wide-ranging knowledge by correctly answering "Jeopardy!" questions as well as expressing his sense of humor.

When someone asked how he was doing, he quipped, "Everything hurts and nothing works!" or he inquired with a smile, "How much time do you have?"

The Life of Paul Kuras

Paul T. Kuras was born Jan. 7, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, the sixth child of Jan (John) Kuras and Karolina (Caroline) Stella Machowska Kuras. Both parents were born in Sufczyn, the Austrian section of Poland, and immigrated in 1911 through Ellis Island to achieve economic opportunities in the United States.

Jan owned a shoe repair business. Karolina raised their six children, all of whom were born at home in Chicago except Paul, who was delivered at the Norwegian American Hospital. "I always thought of myself as being part Norwegian," he joked.

The family lived in a small house built in 1898 with a living room, kitchen and two other rooms on West Cortland Street at the edge of the railroad tracks. When playing in his backyard, Paul could hear the whistle of an approaching locomotive and he took great joy in holding up his tin toy train and moving it in tandem with the passing train.

As a child, Pauls father and older brother, Stanley, took Paul to watch planes land at the Chicago Air Park, which was built in 1923 and later renamed Chicago Midway International Airport.

"It was quite thrilling," Paul recalled. His father even brought him to see Italian general Italo Balbos plane after it landed near Lake Michigan in 1933.

Paul said he was a typical boy who liked machinery and wanted to know how everything worked. Later, he enrolled in technical classes at Lane Tech College Prep High School and worked after school in a Chicago war plant building communication electronic equipment for armed forces airplanes, ships and bases.

He was also a Boy Scout and enjoyed hikes in a forest preserve with his family. They would ride the streetcar, catch a bus to the end of the line and then walk an extra mile, "unless we had a nickel for a cab ride," Paul recalled. They would have a picnic and listen to polka music. Sometimes, they would camp overnight.

Paul read westerns and books on history, listened to the radio, "where you could use your imagination," swam at the YMCA and played sandlot baseball. Interestingly, he didnt attend a game at Wrigley Field until he was an adult.

Paul moved out of the family house when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was grateful to the military classifier at the recruit training center on Parris Island, South Carolina, who decided, based on Pauls impressive test results, to assigned Paul to aviation school in Quantico, Virginia.

His first flight as a passenger was brief: After swearing he would "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies," the newly minted Marine left National Airport in Washington, D.C. (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport), landed at Willow Run Airport in Michigan and then Chicago Midway, to earn his "flight skin" with his squadron.

As an engineer, he first specialized in Vought F4U Corsair fighter planes. "It was a lot of responsibility for an 18-year-old," he said.

In Korea, he transferred his expertise to jets. He remembered asking his commanding officer, "What do I know about jets?" The response: "Youll learn."

His military work extended beyond airports. He conducted electronic counterintelligence on North Korea and China from a base in Iwakuni, Japan. He also participated in field-carrier landing practice in Cubi Point in the Philippines, and Air Force and Navy strikes in North Vietnam.

In the late 1940s, while stationed in California, he met Nancy Joyce McGrath in Los Angeles and after a long courtship, they married in 1952.

Paul earned engineering degrees at Orange Coast College and Santa Ana Community College with the aid of the G.I. Bill.

Over his long life, Paul was proud of meeting Marine Medal of Honor winners Ken Walsh in Japan and Guadalcanal fighter ace Joe Foss. An avid reader, Paul also met bestselling Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad.

While living in San Antonio, Paul met NASA astronaut Scott Tingle through their mutual friend, Stan Tebbe.

Pauls love of flight transported him to all corners of the world. In the service, he was sent to several countries, as well as Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. He was stationed in Illinois; California (first Miramar); Cherry Point, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee, then finally, for a long stint in El Toro, California.

He vacationed sailing the Black Sea on the rivers of Europe, enjoyed cruises to Alaska and the Mexican Riviera, and trips with his children and grandchildren to Hawaii.

He joked his accommodations were much better on cruise ships than time he served on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, among others.

Paul visited relatives in Poland, his grandson Eric Eastman in the Czech Republic, and appreciated seeing fall colors in New England and Broadway shows in New York City.

Paul survived all his siblings, who in addition to Jane, included Sophie Kuras Sandby, an industrial inspector; Stanley Kuras, a printer; and John Kuras, a block glass salesman. Brother Joe (Joey) Kuras passed away from a sledding accident as a teenager.

Paul is survived by daughters Charmaine (Jim) Duquesnel, Loretta Patterson and Janet Eastman. His son, Paul Jr., died in 2016.

A large part of Pauls legacy lives on with his grandsons, Will and Monte Banowsky, Sean and Brian McHugh, and Eric (Nora) Eastman; and great grandchildren, Katie, Ella, Wyatt and Sean Jr.

Memorial services will be held in honor of Pauls 94th birthday at 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2022, at The Towers in San Antonio.

A Funeral Mass will take place at 10 a.m. on Feb. 5 at St. Norberts Church in Orange, California, followed by a luncheon at The Villa.

Military final honors and burial at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar will start at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7, followed by a luncheon.

In lieu of flowers, Paul wished that donations be made to the all-volunteer Camp Pendleton Marine Toys for Tots, which provides toys, books and gifts to children year-round (https://rb.gy/2rovgt , 760-622-6166).