February Veteran Spotlight: Al Benjamin

At 96 years of age, Al Benjamin is truly something special. His extraordinary energy, vitality and sense of humor are unmatched for a man his age. The retired 1st Lieutenant grew up in Dorchester, MA and, from a young age, was fascinated by flying. “I read every magazine I could find on flying and every book about learning to fly and how to navigate” he recalled. When the U.S Army published training manuals on air navigation, Lt. Benjamin devoured them.
In July of 1942, the Army announced that they needed aircrew members. Lt. Benjamin easily passed the Aviation Cadet exam and was sworn into the Army Air Corps Reserve. As it turns out, the Army had such a flood of applicants, they were hard pressed to call everyone up. So they came up with a unique idea and asked the empty Colleges and Universities to open their facilities to Aviation Students to help them supplement their education to become officers. Lt. Benjamin was sent to Canisius College in Buffalo to prepare to become an Aviation Cadet. He was then sent to the Cadet Classification Center and assigned to Preflight Ground School at Maxwell Field. Lt. Benjamin graduated pre-flight school and was sent to flight training in Avon Park, FL.

After 9 weeks of basic training in Atlantic City, NJ (housing was in hotels), Lt. Benjamin was given his first assignment as a navigator with the 8th Air Force; flying on a B-17 Transport Plane loaded with K-Rations that took off from County, Nebraska and landed at an RAF Base in Northern London. At 17 years of age, “he felt very confident because he had studied and knew his stuff well.” The average life of an airmen in the 8th Air Force was (13) missions (some actually few 35). The average age of a crewman was 21 years with the flight officer’s 23. A telling statistic on how dangerous the missions were; 35% of the crews were seriously wounded and 30% ended up dead.

When asked about being away from home during the holidays, Lt. Benjamin brushed the question away easily and responded, “we were too busy to think about it….we flew 2-3 days on a mission and then had 2-3 days off.” Lt. Benjamin flew an astounding (31) missions but it was his 13th (“the unlucky 13th”) that he remembers the most. They had just dropped their bomb load at factories and munitions plants over Germany.

Returning home, their B-17 was hit by enemy fire. As the plane began to lose altitude the Captain was preparing the crew to jump. Lt. Benjamin pleaded with the Captain to hold course for another 77 minutes until they crashed. He had calculated the precise time on which they would be to the nearest known American battle line or, if nothing else, close to friendly territory. When the captain asked Lt. Benjamin why he wanted to wait the extra 77 minutes, he exclaimed, “Sir, I’m Jewish. If we jump into German territory and I’m captured. I’ll surely be killed.” As the plane approached an altitude of 10,000 feet, the bailout bell sounded and the crew jumped. When they landed Lt. Benjamin was surrounded by men with guns (members of the French Resistance) who kept shouting at him, thinking he was German. It was a crew member who ran at the men shouting, “He’s an American! He’s an American!” They were then taken to a nearby farmhouse to hide out as Nazi’s were still in the area. The Resistance took them to a hospital in town at nightfall where a doctor treated them and they were fed. The next morning Lt. Benjamin and crew were awakened by noise outside their hospital windows – townspeople were lining up outside and wanted to come and visit them, bringing little gifts, tears and joy. Lt. Benjamin recalled two stories; one of an old woman who came to visit him. She spoke in French with an English nurse doing the translation. The old woman told of her two older sons that lost their lives to the Nazi’s, executed as Freedom Fighters and her youngest, who stayed in hiding until the Americans came to liberate them. It brought tears to Lt. Benjamin’s eyes. The (31) missions that Lt. Benjamin was on took 17 months and 31 days. When I asked if he was ever afraid he said, “I was afraid thirty one times” adding, “I never had a bad dream and have no regrets from my service.” Lt. Alfred Benjamin, thank you for your service to our great country.