Page 8 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • May 9, 2012 Wyckoff Ray Zegel, grand marshal of the 2012 Wyckoff Memorial Day Parade, served in the northernmost theater of the war against Japan: the Aleutian Islands between Alaska and Sibera, where battle and weather conditions tested American service personnel during World War II. “I am a lifelong resident of Wyckoff, having grown up in east Wyckoff with my mother and father and brother Marty,” Zegel said. “I attended Coolidge School and Washington School here in town. I graduated from Ramsey High School, which, at the time, was a regional school.” Zegel enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the age of 17 in 1943, and left for active duty in the middle of 1944. He took his basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi and then attended airplane and engine school in Amarillo, Texas. The Aleutians had been a fixation with strategists on both sides of World War II because the islands stretch like a necklace between Alaska and Siberia, just north of Japan. Fighting took place there in 1942 and 1943, as the Japanese fought to the death on the island of Attu, but later evacuated the island of Kiska, leaving behind only two husky dogs and the graves of their dead, along with the American pilot who had received a full military funeral after a fatal crash. By the time Zegel arrived, the principal threat was the weather, which made flying and navigating uncertain at best. His first station was Shemya Island, part of Alaska. Grand marshal served in the Aleutian Islands “(I was) immediately out on detached service to Yakatac, Alaska, where I was one of seven men responsible to maintain an airfield and its aircraft during World War II,” Zegel recalled. “This was a beautiful place to be stationed. There, I was made corporal. After seven months, I returned to Shemya Island, Alaska, for an additional eight months. I worked as a mechanic on P-38 and P-51 aircraft. I was discharged in 1946.” The P-38, which was rushed into service because the United States needed a high-altitude fighter that could cope with the German and Japanese fighter planes, had twin engines that gave the airplane a rapid rate of climb. They were notoriously prone to stall when the P-38 dove to lower altitudes. Pilots killed in P-38 stalls included Ed Dyess, hero of the defense of Bataan; Tommy McGuire, Ridgewood resident and a leading Pacific ace; and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of “The Little Prince,” who was originally described as the victim of a Luftwaffe FW 190, but more recently found to have been the victim of a P-38 stall. The P-51, known as the F-51 during the Korean War, was the fastest propeller-driven fighter of World War II and was popular in air races for decades afterwards. Two F-51s stuck together became a distinct aircraft, the F-82, used for longdistance reconnaissance missions. When he returned home from the service, Zegel married his wife Ellen, known as Trudy, and joined his father as a partner Ray Zegel in Zegel’s Hardware in Midland Park. The father and son sold the business after 18 years, and Zegel represented Stihl Chain- saw Company for 25 years. He retired in 1991, and he and Trudy still live in their Wyckoff home.