AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2015 - 112

PILOTS

TWICE A VOLUNTEER

Leon Frankel
Fighting
for a cause

BY PHIL SCOT T

112 | AOPA PILOT April 2015

TOP: PLAYMOUNT PRODUCTIONS

LEON FRANKEL c l e a r l y
remembers that phone call
from New York. It was 1948,
Israel had just declared
independence, and five
surrounding Arab countries invaded the next day.
While Frankel stood inside
his car dealership in Minot,
North Dakota- Capitol
Motor Sales-the disembodied voice asked him to
join Israel's air force with 25
Czech-built Messerschmitt
Bf 109 airframes mated to
older Heinkel He 111 bomber
engines and props, bought
in violation of the UN arms
LOGBOOK
WHO | Leon Frankel, Naval
embargo-officially, the Avia
aviator
199. The pilots called them
HOURS | 1,200
"The Mule."
used-car-and-truck business. He took leave from both to join the
FAVORITE AIRPLANE | Cub, TBM,
"A great airplane, then the Spitfire-"anything but 'The
fresh Israeli Air Force 101st squadron. "It wasn't very sophisticated,"
Mule'"
Czechs got ahold of them," RECOGNITION | Navy Cross,
he says. "We had a transport section-C-54s, C-46s, and C-47s-
Frankel says. Within weeks he Distinguished Flying Cross
that doubled as a bombing group, and one fighter squadron."
was flying one over the Negev (2), Air Medal (3), Presidential
He made it to 25 missions there, too. That October, "I chased
Citation (2)
Desert.
an Egyptian Spitfire halfway to Cairo, when I realized I might not
EXTRA | "I loved aviation. I first
"The irony didn't escape had a flight in a Piper Cub. I paid have enough fuel," he says. Refueling in Tel Aviv, he saw oil leakany of us," he says. "I was sit- two bucks and they flew me over ing from under the cowling. "I called the mechanic, who fiddled
the city. I was just thrilled about
ting in a German airplane it. I thought, Oh, this is for me. I
around for 10 minutes and buttoned up the cowling. I took off leavwith a German flight suit and just want to get into aviation."
ing a smoke trail, and the engine started to run rough. I saw the oil
a German helmet, thinking,
pressure gage on zero. I'd never seen an oil pressure gauge on zero.
What's a nice Jewish boy from
I looked around for a place to land and I just made it over a huge
St. Paul doing in a place like this?"
pile of debris and skidded in on the belly."
A Navy pilot, Frankel first saw action in
Walking west, he thought about a couple of pilots captured, tortured, and decapFebruary 1945 flying a TBF/TBM Avenger itated by Arab soldiers. He saw a truck with soldiers in it heading toward him. He
over Tokyo. During the fight, a Japanese jumped in a ditch and pulled out his revolver. The truck turned out to be Israeli
airplane hit his commander's and dam- soldiers, who drove him to a police station
aged two of its three prop blades. "I pulled in the next town.
up beside him and escorted him back to
"And that was my last flight in Israel," he
the carrier," Frankel says. "Over Okinawa a says. Injured, he spent a week in the hospital,
few weeks later he was killed in front of me then he returned to Minot and the reserves-
when one of our own fighters ran into him. where he flew one weekend a month until he
I can still feel the flames."
left the service in 1958. A friend in Minot let
Awarded the Navy Cross, Frankel had him use his Piper Cub when the flying bug bit
logged 25 missions when the A-bomb again. Now 91, he is featured in the documenfell. Back home he joined the Naval tary film Above and Beyond: The Birth of the
THE PILOT during World War II and the
Reserves, and with a partner opened a Israeli Air Force.
AOPA
Battle of Okinawa.

AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2015

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