Obituaries

Abraham “Al’’ Jaffe

Al Jaffe, WWII hero who inspired movie role, dies in South Florida

 

The New York Times and Life magazine covered his war time exploits. In his later years, Jaffe went on to a career in banking and the electronics business in South Florida.

ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com

Al Jaffe was a scrappy, streetwise Jewish kid from the Bronx who climbed into a P-51 Mustang fighter plane in the last year of World War II and flew it into history.

Second Lt. Abraham “Al’’ Jaffe completed 77 reconnaissance missions in Europe, including one that helped turn the tide of the war during the pivotal Battle of the Bulge.

He was also involved in holding the bridge at Remagen, Germany, enabling U.S. troops to cross the Rhine River two months before the war ended.

His exploits inspired Henry Fonda’s character, Lt. Col. Daniel Kiley, in the 1965 feature film Battle of the Bulge — and earned Jaffe 17 medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the nation’s third highest combat decoration.

Jaffe succumbed to long-term heart disease at home in Weston on Aug. 20, three days after his 88th birthday. He and his wife, Edith, moved there three years ago after 45 years in North Miami Beach’s Skylake neighborhood.

In his last hours, Jaffe was attended by loved ones amid an extraordinary trove of original WWII memorabilia, including his aviator’s log book, his Army uniforms, his decorations and their supporting citations, photos he shot at the just-liberated Nazi death camp Buchenwald, and a replica of the P-51 he named Nankie, his childhood name for sister Charlotte.

Fascinated by airplanes, Jaffe joined an Army Air Force cadet program while attending James Monroe High School. He went on active duty at 18, trained at bases across the Deep South — including Florida’s Punta Gorda Army Airfield — survived a training crash, and several near misses in combat.

He never expected to come home, which, he’d later say, made him both fearless and fatalistic.

“We had hundreds of thousands of people over there, so what did a life mean?’’ Jaffe asked during a videotaped oral history interview in 2003.

To his own amazement, his most serious war wound was a self-inflicted ax gash on one leg during a firewood-chopping mishap.

Settling in South Florida after the war with his young bride, Jaffe got a job as an investigator for the business rating agency Dun & Bradstreet, then transitioned to banking and business.

He served as chief financial officer of Topp Electronics in the 1970s when, said son Arthur Jaffe, a Plantation CPA, “it was bigger than Panasonic.’’ He became president of Pan American Bank of Hialeah in 1975 and retired in 1994 as a vice president of Barclay’s Bank in Miami.

Although his business career had its share of excitement — he was involved with Jacques Mossler, the Key Biscayne tycoon brutally murdered in 1964, allegedly by his wife Candy and her nephew/lover Melvin Lane Powers, both acquitted in a sensational trial — nothing ever rivaled his wartime experience.

Jaffe spoke of it to civic groups and historians — in plain language lightly sprinkled with GI profanity — well into his 80s.

He remained in the Army Reserve until 1957, attended P-51 reunions, and returned in 1995 to the scene of his most dangerous mission, in Belgium.

But for years, Al Jaffe barely mentioned it, not the death he saw, caused or risked.

“Who talked about it?’’ he asked in the oral-history interview. “We didn’t talk; we ‘did.’’’

Jaffe described the rough conditions that his group endured while following Gen. George Patton’s First Army — the decoy force assembled to confuse the Germans about the Allies’ landing plans in France — across the Rhine into Germany.

Read more Obituaries stories from the Miami Herald

  •  

This undated photo provided by his family shows renowned American photographer Wayne F. Miller. Miller, who produced some of the most indelible combat images of World War II and created a ground-breaking series of portraits chronicling the lives of black Americans in Chicago, died Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at age 94. Miller served with an elite Navy unit in the Pacific and took some of the first pictures of Hiroshima, Japan, after it was devastated by the first atomic bomb.  He returned home to his native Chicago and spent two years on the city's South Side capturing the experiences of black residents.

    Photographer and forester Wayne Miller dies at 94

    Photographer Wayne F. Miller, who created a ground-breaking series of portraits chronicling the lives of black Americans in Chicago after serving with an elite Navy unit that produced some of the most indelible combat images of World War II, died Wednesday. He was 94.

  •  

This 1972 Miami Herald photo shows Mike Burke, founder of Windjammer Barefoot Cruises.

    DEATHS

    Capt. Mike Burke, Windjammer founder, dies at 89

    Capt. Michael Burke sailed through life with his unending spirit and romantic outlook, touching the lives of many with his cruise empire, Windjammer Barefoot Cruises.

  • Minn. teen whose farewell song became web hit dies

    When high school student Zach Sobiech learned he didn't have much longer to live, his mother suggested he write letters to tell his loved ones goodbye. Instead, the Minnesota teenager turned to writing music - and his farewell song, "Clouds," became a YouTube sensation that has attracted more than 4 million views.

Miami Herald

  • Videos

  • Quick Job Search

Enter Keyword(s) Enter City Select a State Select a Category