Ken Curchin began his war service in a US Army’s construction battalion, spending 13 months in the Yukon, building what became the Alaska-Canada Highway.



He held a private pilot's licence and really he wanted to fly so he kept on at the Army until they relented (he didn't have the two years' college experience that was necessary at that time) and sent him to B-17 flight school in 1943.



Ken served as a pilot with the 837th Bomb Squadron of the 487th Bomb Group. He was based at Lavenham, England. Ken flew on two combat missions. . . . Ruland to bomb an oil refinery and Berlin (the largest of the war at that time. . . 1250 bombers and 600 fighters).



After the war, Ken married Thelma Long and they raised five children in Fair View, while Ken cut hair in the family-owned barber's shop. He and Thelma were together for 56 years, until her death in 2007. Ken still lives in Fair Haven, New Jersey. He is 99 and will be 100 in April.



The Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect newspaper ran a funny and frank interview with Ken late last year: http://rumsonfairhavenretrospect.com/?p=9957