The fifth of eight children of John and Anna Prokop, born on 21 October 1922 in Lackawanna and grew up in the St Ann's section of Scranton, PA. Enlisted in 1939 at 17 years of age, Waist gunner aboard the B-17, #44-8437 that took off from Knettishall Airfield in Suffolk England on a mission to bomb the rail marshalling yards in Frankfurt. The plane was shot down by flak over Hanau and Prokop sucessfully parachuted from the plane. He was captured by the police in Hanau and turned over to the Gestapo. He was executed in the courtyard behind the Gestapo headquarters building later that day by a single bullet to the head.