1st LT. Si Spiegel
U.S. Army Air Corps. 8th Air Force
849th Bombardment Squadron 
490th Bombardment Group
European Theater ’41 – ‘45

Childhood in New York City 1920-1940
Si Spiegel was born to immigrant parents in New York City on May 28th, 1924.  His father came from the Ukraine and his mother from Romania.  Early on the family only spoke Yiddish but by the time Si was born his brother was attending school and his parents were learning English.  Si spoke both English and Yiddish.
 
Si, his two brothers and his parents lived in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn in New York City.  They later moved to West 11th Street in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan so they would be closer to the hand laundry business his father owned.  His uncle also had a hand laundry nearby.  
 
In the early 1900’s many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe headed north to the Catskills to find land to farm.  What they found was a terrain to rocky to farm.  Instead, they operated boarding houses.  Over time they expanded to hotels and eventually several owned the resorts in the “Borsht Belt”.  The Borsht Belt became a summer vacation getaway for Jewish clientele with several well-known resorts such as Kutcher’s and Grossinger’s which was the subject of the movie Dirty Dancing.
 
Si was 15 in 1939 and went on a family vacation to Rosenblatt’s in the Borscht Belt.  He heard about an opening at Rosenblatt’s and decided to apply.  He was told to come back when he was 16, the legal working age.  A few weeks later Si heard Rosenblatt was desperate for a busboy.  “I ran down to the hotel and the guy says to me.  ‘How old are you?’  I said 15.  The guys says, ‘no, your 16’.  I corrected him and said I was 15.  Then he says with great emphasis, ‘you’re 16 aren’t you?!’  then I’m thinking, Oh, yeah, I’m 16.”  Si was required to live on the premises.  He and a few other staff members lived in small rooms in the frame of the water tower owned by Rosenblatt’s.  “The big thing about hotels was the food.”  The staff ate for free.  “I was paid $1 per day plus room and board.”  Not much of a wage at the time but at the end of the season he came home with $300 in tips.  “That $300 was more like $3,000 today.  I gave it to my father and never saw it again.”
 
Si recalled the family owning a radio and they would crowd around to listen to various programs including President Roosevelts fireside chats.  Si recalled learning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor over the radio when he was 17.  In Si’s sophomore year of high school, he knew he wouldn’t be going to college, so he started taking machine shop classes.  He graduated from Textile High School in 1942.  “When I graduated from high school I had a cousin, Ernie Margineaux.  He was the head of the drafting department of a company McKiernan Terry in Harrison, NJ.  The company was making catapults for the Navy.  ‘We are hiring as fast as possible.  Why don’t you come down and work for us.’  So, I worked there for 4 months in the machine shop.”  After a short time, Si recalled thinking, “I don’t belong here, I belong in the Army.  We know what Hitler is doing.  My brother was drafted but I didn’t want to wait to be drafted.”
 
A Pilot for the U.S. Army Air Corps
Si enlisted in the Army and because of his background working in the machine shop, he was sent to aircraft mechanic school at Roosevelt Field on Long Island in New York.  This frustrated Si.  He wanted to be where the action was.  He wanted to be out front and in the fight against Hitler.  He decided he wanted to be a pilot.  “I never wanted to be a pilot.  I never dreamed of it in the beginning.”  Si talked with one of the officers in the hangers in Roosevelt Field and he was sympathetic to Si’s predicament.  He told Si, Mitchel Field was a short bus ride away.  There they were building the Army Air Corps as fast as they could, and he suggested Si try to join the Aviation Cadets.  Si jumped on a bus to Mitchel Field, passed the eye test and was enrolled into flight training.
 
His pilot training took him to Nashville, California and Arizona.  He learned to fly in a wooden two-seater with canvas wings, an open cockpit, a wooden propeller and a stick that controlled the plane.  He graduated, was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and was sent to Hobbs, New Mexico.  When he arrived at Hobbs he was trained to pilot the B-17, known as the Flying Fortress.
 
Si was sent to Oklahoma where he met his crew and was assigned a B17.  At this time during the war the Allies were conducting a massive air campaign against the Nazi’s. It was a battle of attrition and Si and the boys were a replacement crew.  They took off at midnight carrying a full load of fuel and supplies and headed to Greiner Field in New Hampshire.  Much to their surprise, when they landed at Grenier Field they were greeted on the runway by a full complement of fire and emergency rescue vehicles.  The tower had spotted flames coming from the plane.  After an investigation, they determine the fuel pump had been sabotaged.  After two weeks Si and the crew flew to Goose Bay, Labrador, then to Reykjavik, Iceland, then on to Wales.  In Wales the crew was given a new plane and then headed for their final destination in England.  Unlike many other bombers Si’s plane did not have a name or “nose-art”.
 
Si’s described his crew as “a band of discards”, perhaps something akin to the Bowery Boys of 1950’s TV fame.  “We were a shit crew.”   The crew consisted of 9 men including Si.  “There were 2 Jews, 5 Catholics, and a Mormon.”  Si said the crew had one WASP.  He had been in trouble with the law and the judge gave him the choice between jail and the Army.  He enlisted and became the ball-turret gunner on the belly of the aircraft.  “I always thought the ball-turret gunner was the worst of all.”   Si recalled a plane that was hit and was heading for a belly landing “and they couldn’t get the guy out of the ball turret, and they couldn’t get the wheels down.  But they had to come down.”  Danny Shapiro was the bombardier, Ray Patulski was the navigator, Harold Bennett was the top-turret machine gunner, Frank Sanchez was the radio operator and Dale Tyler was the tail gunner.  Si recalled they would be loaded down with 6,000 pounds of bombs for each mission.  
 
After takeoff for a mission, the planes would circle around a rally point until all of the planes were accounted for.  They would then head across the English Channel in formation.  Si said they never flew directly to the target but rather made some “zigzag turns” to reduce the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire.  At the initial point the formation made a turn and headed to the target.  At this point all of the planes would spread out and wait to see the lead plane release its bombs. Then the rest of the formation would drop its’ bombs.
 
Flying a B17 Over Europe
Si recalled his first flight as a milk run over Belgium.  A milk run was the colloquialism for an easy run .  “Beautiful day. Short flight. No problems at all.  No fighters, not much anti-aircraft.”  He was the co-pilot on his first flight.  This was an easy mission.  “There was never an easy mission after that.”  Si said wasn’t scared until after 10 or 11 missions.  “When I was scared, I was on the ground.  As soon as you get on the plane, you are trained for what you have to do.  When we came back from our missions, I’d get off the plane and my knees would start to buckle.”  After each mission the men were greeted by the Red Cross and were given coffee and donuts and then taken to “interrogation”.  The interrogation, which started with a shot of whisky, consisted of interviewing the men that returned about the number of enemy fighters, if their bombs hit the target and if they saw any parachutes from downed planes.  “I learned to drink scotch.”
 
Si flew a total of 35 daylight missions, which in retrospect is an incredible feat since the odds of getting shot down each time a crew went up were so high, it was mathematically impossible to reach 25 missions, the magic number to get a ticket back to the states.  That magic number would later be increased to 30 flights.  Si recalled his longest mission to Merseberg, Germany that lasted nine or ten hours.  It was 18 miles west of Leipzig and the flak was intense.  “You come back on fumes.”
 
Emergency Landing in Nazi Germany
His 33rd mission was his most memorable mission.  The crew was up at 4am on Saturday February 3rd, 1945, for their briefing and they learned their target was Berlin.  This would be the biggest air attack on Berlin thus far.  1,437 bombers and 948 fighter jets would be unleashed on the Third Reich.  Flak was their biggest concern.  The heralded Luftwaffe was no longer the formidable enemy they once were having taken serious losses over the past several months with the introduction of the U.S P38 Lightning’s and P51 Mustang’s.  Their target was the Frederichstrasse Railway Station in Berlin.     
 
The crew went wheels up from their base in Eye, England and headed to Berlin.  At this point in the war the Allies had turned the tide of the war and Germany was suffering from withering bombing day and night.  The crews knew that if they had to ditch the plane or parachute out over Germany, they would likely be beaten to death, hanged, or shot by angry mobs.  Being Jewish didn’t work in his favor.
 
Soon after take-off Si’s aircraft lost one engine.  As the plane flew over the target, they lost a second engine to flak.  Danny Shapiro released their bombs and Si made the turn to return home.  With only two engines and losing fuel, Si knew they would not be able to make it back to England.  They also knew that the Russians were advancing through Poland and if they could get behind the Russian lines their chances of survival would be greatly increased.  With only two engines they headed east as they continued to lose altitude.  Eventually they reached Warsaw and they began to look for a place to land the aircraft.  Si decided to land on a frozen potato field cut out of a forest.  “It was very small.”  Si landed the plane with the wheels up and skidded across the field.  He was able to maneuver the skidding plane so that the tip of the wing hit the trees and slowed it down.  The plane was intact, and no one was injured.  The potato field was in the village of Rezzyn, Poland.  Si recalled the houses had thatched roofs, dirt floors and no running water.  
 
When the crew exited the plane, they saw the local civilians running toward them yelling “benzine, benzine.” There was fuel leaking from plane and the villagers wanted it.  The crew gladly let them have it.  They learned from the Polish civilians the Nazi’s had fled but the Russians had not yet arrived.  A short time later Polish Partisans arrived and took the crew to Plock (pronounced Plotsk), a medieval city with a large gothic cathedral and a town square with cobblestones.
 
From Plock they were taken to Torun where the Russians had taken over an airfield abandon by the Nazi’s. There they met another American crew who had made an emergency landing at the airfield.  They had lost an engine to flak and one of the tires had blown-out when they landed.  The American airmen were hopeful that the U.S. would send a C47 transport to pick them up and return them to England.  The transport never came.  They repeatedly asked to go home but the Russians said they need permission from Moscow.  That permission never came.  The Russians weren’t holding them prisoners, but they weren’t offering any solutions to returning them to their countrymen.  The pilot of the other crew, George Ruckman though they could use parts from Si’s plane to repair his.  So, the Americans devised a plan to get back behind Allied lines.
 
Through bribery, barter and late night drinking the Americans enlisted the help of some Polish civilians and convinced some Russian soldiers to look the other way.  Some of the airmen traveled 70 miles to the field where Si’s plane landed.  There they took an engine and a tire, brought them back to the airfield in Torun and installed them on the other B17.  Other bartering took place to get fuel and equipment to install the engine.  On Saint Patrick’s Day in 1945, 19 American airmen jumped on the repaired B17, rumbled down the runway past one lonely Russian guard and were airborne.  They headed to Italy with Ruckman in the pilot’s seat and Si’s in the co-pilot’s seat.  The men were concerned the tower at the Allied air field might think the Germans had captured an American plane and were flying it to bomb the U.S. airfield.  As they approached the American airfield in Foggia, Italy Si explained to the airfield tower that they were U.S. airman that had made an emergency landing in Poland several weeks ago and had no identification and the rest of the story of their escape.  The tower said, “come on in.”
 
A Jew Creates the Artificial Christmas Tree Industry
Si flew two more missions before he was discharged.  After his final flight he went to England for some relaxation before boarding a ship back to the states.  He walked back into Greenwich Village on August 31, 1945.  Si enrolled in City College, but he couldn’t concentrate nor relate to his young classmates.  He had seen far more than they could ever imagine.  He decided college wasn’t for him and he quit and went to look for a job.  When World War II ended, New York City and the surrounding area was a major manufacturing center which was growing rapidly.  “If I lost a job, I could pick up the newspaper on Friday night or Saturday, look at the wanted ads, apply for a job on Monday and go to work on Tuesday.  
 
Si found a job at a small machine manufacturing company in Mount Vernon, NY known as American Brush Machine Company (ABMC).  Si was involved with building machines or making parts for the machines.  The manufacturing process consisted of two wires coming together, a picker plate which would pick up a tuft of bristle or some other type of material and twist the wire around the material.  The finished product was a brush.  Some types of brushes ABMC machines made were vegetable brushes, toilet bowl brushes and brushes to clean boilers.
 
Artificial Christmas trees were just coming onto the market in the 1950’s.  At the time aluminum trees were all the rage in artificial Christmas trees.  Slowly the market changed as the realism of the artificial trees improved and attracted the attention of consumers.  Artificial trees continued to grow in size and to look more and more realistic.  By the mid ‘60’s demand took off.  Si’s bosses decided to start a division to make artificial trees.  Unfortunately, the division didn’t make money and they sent Si to shut it down.  Si went to visit the plant and when he came back, he told his bosses, “There’s a business here”.  Si asked them if he could run it and they granted his request.  He brought in real trees and made design modifications to make the artificial trees look more like real trees.  Si’s hard work paid off and the ABMC became the largest manufacturer of artificial Christmas Trees.  In the 1980’s Si started his own business, the Hudson Valley Tree Company, which he successfully grew until he sold it in 1993 and retired a very wealthy man.
 
To Serve Something Greater Than Yourself
Si Spiegel embodies resilience, American ingenuity, and a strong work ethic.  He put his life on the line by volunteering to take the fight to the enemy at a time when the Army Air Corps was suffering terrible losses. He could have served the war effort in a much safer role as an aircraft mechanic, but Si wanted to be where the action was and do all he could to save the world from evil.  Si passed away in early 2024 at a time when the world could use his wisdom and his first-hand experience fighting an evil and inhumane enemy intent on conquering the world.