Posted on 12/15/2004 10:34:57 PM PST by Inyokern
My father-in-law Lenny is dead.
81 years old and very ill. He spent the last year of his life in hospitals and nursing homes suffering from heart failure, kidney failure and other ailments too numerous to mention. He spent his last days gasping for oxygen until virtually every organ in his body gave out.
Physically, Lenny was a small man, perhaps five foot six. You had to be small to fit in the belly of a P-38, which is how Lenny spent much of 1944 and 45. Lenny was an aerial reconnaissance photographer in the US Army Air Force in those days. He spent hours kneeling in the cramped belly of that fighter plane, flying over hostile territory, photographing German cities prior to and after bombing runs.
Reconnaissance missions were as dangerous as any bombing mission and a lot lonelier. And Lenny knew that, as a Jew, if he were shot down over Germany, his chances of survival would be virtually zero. But all of the bombing runs by the B-17's and B-24's would have been impossible without the aerial photographs that Lenny and men like him took at great personal risk.
I was at the funeral of an authentic member of "The Greatest Generation."
After the war, Lenny had put military life far behind him, but the US military never forgot Lenny's service. On very short notice, two young soldiers full of spit and polish appeared at the cemetery to give Lenny a military burial. After the other pallbearers and I set the flag-draped casket over the open grave, the soldiers folded the flag in military triangle fashion. One of them produced a bugle and played taps. The other kneeled before his wife and, on behalf of the United States, presented the flag to her in appreciation of the "the honorable and loyal service by your loved one."
Most men who die leave behind photographs. But very few leave behind aerial photographs of Nazi-held territory. Rest in peace, Lenny. You did good.
God rest his soul. A nation is grateful for what he did.
I lost my WW II combat vet father last January, January 25. He fought in the Pacific.
We miss him greatly...but know where he is, and in God's time will be reunited with him there.
God Bless
God Bless
May the Good Lord welcome Lenny with His warmest embrace. We owe Lenny and his brethren a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
Memory Eternal Lenny.
God Bless his loved ones during their time of grief.
Rest in peace Lenny. Stand at ease.
And thanks, Inyokern.
May the Lord bless your family in your time of grief. Thank you for sharing this brief glimpse into the life of a member of our Greatest Generation.
God bless this American hero.
God bless Lenny, and all the other men and women who saved the world.
He did indeed. Sometimes the confluence of events summmons out of us courage that perhaps we did not know we had, and we just do it, because we feel we are needed for a noble cause, whatever the risk. Your father-in-law was one such man. In doing what he felt was his duty, he achieved yet something else, which he may not have consciously sought, but is his legacy nevertheless: the esteem and admiration of his issue, and issue yet to come, who will recount, with pride, his life and his service. In that sense, at least, he endures, and will be with us long after both of us have departe this mortal coil. May he RIP. The Republic survives, and prospers, only to the extent it breeds and nurtures men like him.
Lenny,
Thank you for my freedom.
-A grateful American
One of the brave men that saved the world. God bless the souls of the brave and the free. I wish I could have had a beer and a long conversation with this guy, I would have learned something.
May the light of the Lord in which Lenny now basks shine upon you and yours in your hour of grief.
This legendary aeroplane was widely used by US reconnaissance pilots during World War Two. The trimetrigon camera setup in the P-38 made it ideal for mapping, and was best illustrated on D-Day when several sweeps of P-38s covered the entire Normandy beach-head landings. The 'dicing' camera, installed in the aircraft's nose, was effectively used during the battle against V-weapons, when pilots flew as low as 15.2m (50ft) to photograph the launching sites.
WOW What a guy. Hope you got to enjoy the stories of his history. May he rest in peace.
Yes, that is the plane.
I guess they flew into enemy territory unarmed (not that the little armament of one plane would have made much difference).
I can't imagine what it must have been like in the belly of that thing.
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