Old headstone with new headstone (bottom) added in February 2007.

RAF pilot's life, death honored
Ceremony conducted on 65th anniversary of passing
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Saturday, February 17, 2007.

By TITUS GEE
Valley Press Staff Writer
LANCASTER - A low rumble invaded the sunlit calm of Lancaster Cemetery on Friday as a pastor read the poem "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth" ­- an apt metaphor of flight and death - over the grave of Royal Air Force Cadet Meyer Bernard Himelstaub.

A Stearman biplane and a World War II-era AT6 trainer made one pass over the cemetery, then swung around to fly the "missing man formation," a traditional memorial pattern to honor a dead pilot. As the planes approached from the north, the AT6 veered off to the west, crossed the sun and disappeared.

Friday's ceremony marked the 65th anniversary of the death of Himelstaub, a Pole who fled his homeland after the 1939 Nazi invasion, enlisted in the English military and was sent to America to learn to fly.

At Lancaster's War Eagle Field, the flight cadet walked into a spinning aircraft propeller and died of massive head trauma on Feb. 13, 1942. He was one of about 300 trainees who never graduated, and the only one who died at War Eagle Field.

About 150 people gathered for Friday's ceremony that honored Himelstaub, whose story became legend and spawned ghost stories at the airfield and the Mira Loma detention center that stands on that site.

About 200 young men graduated from War Eagle, which provided "unofficial" training for British pilots before America entered World War II. The pilots returned to England and were assigned to fighter or bomber squadrons, according to their abilities. Few survived the war.

Local organizers arranged Friday's ceremony in order to pay tribute to a young man who died far from home - a man who deserves more than a spooky story.

Bob Alvis , a veteran and local history buff who helped organize the ceremony, told the crowd that the men who learned at War Eagle Field and all those who fought in World War II laid the groundwork for the aerospace accomplishments that define the Antelope Valley.

"Instead of facing the unknown (like Valley test pilots), they each faced a determined young man from another country - determined to take his life," Alvis said. "If those pilots had failed, those records that have been set in the skies above the Antelope Valley might have been set in another land - over the land of Germany or in the skies of Japan."

Helping Alvis organize and run the event were Barbara Little, the cemetery manager, and her daughter Lani Glasscock . Glasscock's eighth-grade history class at Hillview Middle School in west Palmdale did much of the footwork that made the ceremony possible and presented historical information during it.

"He had no family here to mourn him, so the Antelope Valley adopted him as one of our own," student Shauntelle Ramirez said of Himelstaub.

She described his suffering in the Warsaw ghetto because he was a Jew and his escape to join the war effort.

"Himelstaub was a determined man. He escaped Hitler's attempt to enslave the Polish people and the Nazi 'solution' for Jews in Europe," Ramirez said. "He is an example for all of us."

Among the audience sat men who served in the Royal Air Force during World War II as well as RAF officers currently serving in the Valley.

Ken Wright was an RAF navigator during the war, then went on to work in rocketry.

"It's deeply touching to see so many young people here honoring the past," Wright said.

Don Guerrant , pastor of Christ Our Savior United Methodist Church, read the famous poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

"As I read, pretend that this is him, saying these words to us," Guerrant said.

Rabbi David Hoffman of Beth Knesset Bamidbar in Lancaster also joined in the ceremony and sang a memorial prayer for Himelstaub.

"Congratulations to all of you for making sure that the saga of Meyer Bernard Himelstaub ended respectfully on just the right note," the rabbi said.

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Getting his wreath

Was giving a wreath today ~ Wreaths across America . Sep 14 2013