Clifford Klein, a turret gunner on an Avenger bomber during World War II, will take his last ride in one of those aircraft over his former Blasdell home later this week, a few days before his funeral.
Klein, who lived most of his life in Blasdell, died March 12 at a nursing home in Kirtland, Ohio, at age 89.
During the last two years of World War II, he sat in the cramped turret on an Avenger flying off the aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard.
After the war, Klein returned to Blasdell and married his wife, Rita. They raised three children in a house he built on Wabash Avenue next to his childhood home. He was a union carpenter for John W. Cowper Construction. Klein also joined the Big Tree Volunteer Fire Company in 1955.
After his wife died in 2012, Klein moved to Ohio to be near his son, Jeff, and eventually entered a nursing home.
He never talked about his time in the war, until the last couple of years, when his 11-year-old grandson, Victor, a history buff, asked him about his war experiences. Victor also introduced his grandfather to a man who had restored an Avenger.
And now the pilot, Charlie Cartledge, is donating his Avenger and his time to fly Klein’s cremains to Western New York one last time. Rita’s cremains will join those of her husband on the trip back to Blasdell. Jeff will carry the urn.
Part of the fuel cost for the trip will be paid by a special fund for memorial flyovers set up at the Liberty Aviation Museum in Port Clinton, Ohio.
“This is our way of honoring these World War II guys who gave so much,” Cartledge said. “All these guys are in their 90s. We’re on a limited time to meet them, and to thank them and hear their stories.”
The plane carrying the cremains will sweep up the shoreline of Lake Erie, where Klein used to fish for pike and perch, turn west up Lake Avenue in Blasdell, past AMVETS Post 897, where Klein was a member.
Then it will fly over South Park Avenue, circle over Wabash Avenue, and go down South Park, flying over the Big Tree Fire Company.
Volunteer firefighters will place their equipment in the parking lot, lights flashing and sirens blaring as a chair, draped with turnout gear, sits in a final salute to their comrade.
The timing of the fly over depends on the weather, but it is planned for the middle to latter part of this week.
The pilot is looking for clear and warmer weather, because there is no heat in the Avenger.
The aircraft, traveling at 200 mph with its powerful, 1,900-horsepower engine, will be noticeable.
“It’s loud and it’s got a large radial engine,” Cartledge said.
A funeral Mass will take place at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Klein’s parish, Our Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church on South Park Avenue in Blasdell.
“This whole thing started with my son,” Jeff Klein said of Victor.
Victor talks proudly of his grandfather. Victor was on a Boy Scout trip to a National Hot Rod Association drag race when Cartledge did a flyover at the race. Victor talked his father into going to the Cleveland Air Show to see the plane up close. They went in August, and Cartledge suggested they bring Clifford Klein back the following day.
Klein chatted with people at the show. One of the stories he told was about Typhoon Cobra in 1944, known as Halsey’s Typhoon, for Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, who commanded the fleet that sailed into the typhoon, losing three destroyers.
“That was the saddest day of my life, when those destroyers went down,” Klein told plane buffs at the show.
He spent the rest of the day sitting on his walker under the wing of the Avenger. People stood in line to meet him, talk to him and get his autograph. He also signed the door of the aircraft, an honor Cartledge reserves for those who have served in an Avenger.
Klein then returned to the nursing home, Golden Living Centers, not far from Cleveland.
The Navy veteran was stricken and went to the hospital three days before he died.
After a day and a half there, he insisted on returning to the nursing home, under Hospice care. An ambulance crew took him back.
“When he saw that squad, he smiled from ear to ear,” Jeff Klein recalled.
He chatted pleasantly with the crew members, telling them about the Big Tree Fire Company.
“Thank you, I’m going home, guys,” he told them. “This is going to be by my last squad ride ever.”
EMTs told his son that Cliff Klein asked them to let the driver know he was in a bit of a hurry, and if traffic became an issue, he wanted the driver to “light the squad up.” He told them he had someplace to be, and he did not want to be late.
Clifford Klein died the next day. He would have turned 90 on April 20.
The aviation machinist’s mate third class will be buried Saturday with the cremains of his wife at Hillcrest Cemetery, passing the Big Tree Fire Hall one last time on the way to the cemetery.
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