Pope Leo XIV's father, Louis Marius Prevost, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Prevost Snr. was born on July 28, 1920, in Chicago. After graduating from college, he was commissioned in November 1943 and became the executive officer of a tank landing ship. He participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Overlord. He also commanded an infantry landing craft, which the Allies used to land infantry soldiers and Marines onto beaches during the war.   

The Normandy coastline did not have the port capacity for the enormous number of materials needed to keep the Allied momentum going. The Navy subsequently sent Prevost and other landing ships to southern France, as part of Operation Dragoon beginning Aug. 15, 1944.

This forced the Germans to defend a second front, diluting their effectiveness.

By the end of August, the Allies had captured the French ports of Marseille and Toulon, immediately using them to land supplies and equipment. In October 1944, more than a third of Allied cargo was shipped through those ports. 

Prevost spent 15 months overseas and attained the rank of lieutenant junior grade before the war in Europe finally ended, May 8, 1945.

After coming home, he became head of Brookwood School District 167, an elementary school district in Glenwood, Illinois, and then principal of Mount Carmel Elementary School in Chicago. He was also a catechist — a teacher of the principles of the Christian religion.

He married Mildred Agnes Martinez, a Chicago native, Jan. 25, 1949. She worked as a librarian.  

The couple had three sons: John Joseph Prevost, a retired educator who lives in Chicago, and Louis Martin Prevost, a Navy veteran who lives in Florida. The youngest, whose birth name is Robert Francis Prevost, was elected as the first American pope, May 8, 2025. 

Mildred died June 18, 1990, and Prevost died in Chicago on Nov. 8, 1997.

Author: David Vergun | U.S. Department of Defense News