My father, David Weisz was a pilot for the Royal Air Force in England from 1940-1945.
I am a first born American in my family, as my mother was of Russian decent was in Auschwitz, and my father was born in Czechoslovakia. He fled in 1938 after Hitler and Chamberlain signed the “Munich Pact.” My Dad went to France, but after Hitler invaded in May of 1940, my Father was trapped at Dunkirk and was in the Dunkirk Evacuation across the English Channel. That’s how he got to the U.K. My father’s British fighter and bomber squad is shown here and was taken in England on August 16, 1944. The picture with three pilots shows my father to the far right, taken on May 8, 1941. The B-24 Liberator shown and piloted by my father was shot down and crash landed on a Scottish island after being attacked by Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Fighters. The date of this photo is from April 24, 1943.
On my father’s side, he was the ONLY one that made it out alive. His entire family (mother, father, 4 brothers, all aunts and uncles, etc.) perished in the gas chambers of Hitler’s insanity. After the war, both my mom and dad met in NY in 1947 and married. I have a sister that lives in Tucson, Arizona and two sons, one of which is a lawyer.
I really don’t talk much about it, as it is very depressing. My father, once a 200 lb. man, weighed in at only 63 pounds, when he died of cancer and God called him home. I was only 18 at the time. Shortly afterwards, while I was talking to my mother on the phone, she dropped dead of a cerebral hemorrhage stroke. I was a teenager. It still hurts me to this day.
I watched the Vietnam war unfold in my living room every night. My sister had a boyfriend that did 3 tours of Nam and came home in 1970 hooked on heroin. I couldn’t figure out why, as I compared it to my father’s war experiences. I tried to talk to my sister’s boyfriend about the war, and he wouldn’t say anything -vs- my father who loved to talk about WW II. Then I met other Vets of Vietnam in the mid 1970’s, none would talk about it. In 1978, I found a University that offered an “Oral History Program” in Albany, NY. It concerned America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. I could obtain a Bachelor’s Degree by simply by traveling around the N.E. United States with a stipend and interview Vietnam Vets. I must have interviewed 100’s, and then they all talked to me. The Texas Tech University has many of my interviews.
That is how I obtained my college degree, and that experience has influenced me to this day…
~Bernie Weisz, Amazon Book Reviewer and American History
www.amazon.com/gp/profile/A25HKEGXUN7YPD
We are grateful to Bernie for sharing his personal family history and story with Comes A Soldier’s Whisper, where we remember our history and soldiers, one day at a time.
God Bless all who serve and keep us safe.
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