Len Zerlin manned a machine gun in the fuselage of a twin-engine bomber over the beaches of Normandy in World War II, and later made it his mission to talk about the war, mortality and freedom in presentations at schools, air shows and anywhere else people would listen.
The Thousand Oaks resident who welcomed visitors to what he called his small World War II museum in a guest bedroom died on July 23 at Los Robles Regional Medical Center. He was 102. His family said the primary cause was pneumonia from COVID-19.
“The passing of my dad marks an end of an era,” said Dr. Gary Zerlin in his eulogy at the military funeral held at Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills on July 26. “He epitomized the ‘Greatest Generation.’”
In Ventura County, he was the face of that generation and driven by the realization that many people had forgotten or never knew the importance of the war and the Normandy invasion of German-occupied France that would help lead to its end.
“They don’t know it exists,” he told The Ventura County Star in a 2024 interview from a den framed by four walls of photos of family, his life and the war. He focused on how history is often ignored in an age dominated by real-time technology. “There’s no mentality to absorb knowledge. It’s now. It’s push the button.”
For decades, Zerlin talked about history and brought parts of his military collection to air shows, Rotary clubs, school classrooms and other gatherings.
In the 2-year-old newspaper story about D-Day’s 80th anniversary, he requested his email address be included. He wanted to make sure people could ask about visiting his home and the spare room filled with flight jackets, the Silver Star he earned for heroism, the France escape map carried by bomber crews in case they were captured and hundreds, maybe thousands of photos.
“He didn’t want the memories to be lost,” his son said, noting he plans to take some of his father’s collection to the Wings Over Camarillo air show on Aug. 16. “One of his favorite sayings was that freedom is not free. He wanted people to realize that.”
Reading Yiddish newspapers
Leonard Zerlin was born in Brooklyn on Dec. 10, 1923. He was diagnosed with pleurisy as a child, lost part of a lung and spent more than a year in a hospital. He talked later about watching from the hospital as the Empire State Building was constructed.
He grew up in a Jewish family and learned about the Holocaust by reading his grandfather’s Yiddish newspapers. He wanted to be part of the fight against it.
He enlisted in the Army Air Corps — now the Air Force — four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He flew 36 missions as a turret gunner and flight engineer. The astonishing tally earned his membership in the Lucky Bastards, the unofficial club for airmen who participated in 30 or more missions.
He flew two missions on D-Day over Normandy to clear the path for the 160,000 Allied troops that were about to storm the beaches. On the second journey, the B-26 bomber carried shells built to pierce armored tanks.
The war was the deadliest in history. Zerlin talked often of the fragility of life. During one mission, the other crew members held him by his feet and lowered him into the bomb bay so he could use screwdrivers to wedge a stuck bomb free. He received the Silver Star for the actions.
He was honorably discharged in 1945 as a staff sergeant. Back in the U.S., he worked jobs ranging from beekeeper to salesman before becoming an aerospace engineer with Hughes Aircraft. He and his wife, Corinne, raised two children. They moved the family to Thousand Oaks in 1961.
He didn’t speak much about the war for many years. Then a granddaughter asked questions that made him realize she had been taught little about it in school. It spurred him to begin his presentations in schools and community groups.
Nancy Graham remembered him coming to the eighth-grade history class she taught at Cabrillo Middle School in Ventura. He talked little about his own story and heroism, focusing instead on the war efforts and the freedom at stake.
“I remember my students being in rapt attention, but he was very humble. He was very patriotic,” she said.
He was a lifelong learner interested in just about everything. For years, he collected rubber bands from the newspaper delivered daily to his home and fashioned them into a giant bouncing ball that made its way into a newspaper photo.
“I still have it,” his son said of the ball.
Though humble, he was a Renaissance man who owned a vast amount of knowledge about many things, said his daughter, Ellen Jirari. He was the family’s go-to man for virtually any question.
“He was a seeker of knowledge.” she said, citing his interest in everything from worms and photography to sculpture and tennis. “He wanted to learn and experience everything.”
In his eulogy, her brother talked about how much he will be missed.
“Every important decision I’ve made in my life has been made with his counsel and advice. He’s been my North Star, and there’s no replacement,” he said, focusing on the void left by his death. “I’ve never been good with loss and this loss cannot be assuaged.”
Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com.
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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Thousand Oaks vet who flew on two D-Day missions dies at 102
Reporting by Tom Kisken, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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By Tom Kisken, Ventura County Star | USA TODAY Network
