Henry Cervantes was a Fresno-born, 19-year-old son of Mexican farmworkers when the Navy instructed him in 1942 that he couldn’t combat for his nation.
An enlistment officer despatched him dwelling, saying the Navy didn’t take Mexicans, Filipinos or Black individuals. In an interview with the American Patriots of Latino Heritage, Cervantes mentioned he directed a few alternative epithets on the officer and declared, “I’ll show you improper,” earlier than working out the door.
He discovered a spot as an alternative within the Military and the Military Air Drive, the place he flew greater than two dozen missions as a part of the “Bloody a hundredth” Bomb Group. He later served as a take a look at pilot and flight teacher, amongst different roles, earlier than retiring as a lieutenant colonel within the Air Drive within the mid-Sixties.
Cervantes lived to see his a hundredth birthday earlier than his demise on April 7 at his dwelling in Playa Vista. The centenarian is remembered by his buddies as a person with “impeccable diction” and mild spirit, however he was no shrinking violet.
Cervantes was born on Oct. 9, 1923, to a younger Mexican couple, María Rincón and Pedro Cervantes. However his father left days after Cervantes was born, and his mom ultimately married his stepfather, Ignacio Gutierrez, a Mexican farmhand.
When he was rising up through the Nice Melancholy, his household was so poor they lived in a tent with a mud ground, he mentioned in an interview with the Nationwide WWII Museum. He couldn’t even afford footwear with intact soles. On one event, in truth, he was despatched dwelling from faculty with bleeding toes.
His household moved to Pittsburgh in 1934, however instances had been nonetheless powerful. Cervantes resorted to stealing 1 / 4 from a stash of ideas collected by a close-by market, utilizing the cash to purchase new footwear — which turned out to be two sizes bigger than his toes; 77 years later, he reached out to Occasions columnist Steve Lopez, whose household owned the market, to repay the debt.
Henry Cervantes takes half within the 440-yard sprint in GI footwear on the Santa Ana Military Air Base in California in 1943.
(Courtesy of Frederick Aguirre)
However racism and poverty didn’t cease Cervantes from ascending the ranks of the army. The Military drafted him six months after he was rejected by the Navy, and through fundamental coaching on the Presidio in Monterey, he took and handed a take a look at for potential pilots. He went on to fly B-17 Flying Fortress bombers as one of many few Latinos in his cohort.
“Throughout his coaching, he was referred to as a unclean Mexican,” mentioned retired Choose Frederick Aguirre, who met Cervantes in 2002 at a veterans occasion and grew near him by way of Aguirre’s work documenting the lives of Latino Conflict Conflict II veterans. He recalled that his good friend had confronted bother incomes the respect of his white subordinates, and there was “plenty of discrimination in opposition to dark-skinned Mexican individuals” on the time.
Cervantes survived 26 missions throughout World Conflict II as a part of the a hundredth Bomb Group, which flew over the English Channel and Holland into German skies. Its fight missions had been dramatized within the TV miniseries “Masters of the Air,” government produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Cervantes instructed the WWII Museum that he additionally flew humanitarian missions to deliver meals and provides to Holland, however the bombers nonetheless needed to survive assaults from German fighter planes — certainly one of which rammed Cervantes’ B-17, which someway made it again to base and efficiently crash-landed.
From left, Tom Hanks, Henry Cervantes, John Luckadoo, Robert Wolff, James Rasmussen and Gary Goetzman attend the premiere of the Apple TV+ “Masters of the Air” miniseries on the Regency Village Theater on Jan. 10, 2024, in Los Angeles.
(Eric Charbonneau / Getty Pictures )
Cervantes additionally set information as a take a look at pilot for the preliminary jets that had been being built-in into army flight craft in 1945. By the point he retired in 1965, the Air Drive had superior from the B-17 to the B-58s, the primary bombers to fly at twice the pace of sound.
Life didn’t cease shifting for Cervantes, who detailed his life earlier than and after the army in his memoir, “Piloto: Migrant Employee to Jet Pilot.” Cervantes went on to work for the Los Angeles workplace of Protection Contract Administration Providers and for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, managing Hispanic affairs.
Amongst different hobbies, Cervantes, who had been a track-and-field athlete in highschool, grew to become an official for USA Monitor and Subject and a officiant on the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He would typically volunteer his companies to the L.A. Particular Olympics.
Cervantes is survived by his sister, Jennie Gonzalez, a number of nieces and nephews, and his longtime accomplice and good friend of greater than 60 years, Nancy Kahn. The couple first dated in 1964 once they met within the Air Drive, staying collectively for 10 years earlier than they broke up. Cervantes remained single his entire life.
“He used to say he was married to the army,” Kahn mentioned. When the 2 reconnected after the demise of Kahn’s husband in 2014, she was 75 and he was 90.
Henry Cervantes is proven on the point of fly his first mission out of England.
(Courtesy of Frederick Aguirre)
“We did every little thing collectively,” mentioned Kahn of the final decade of their rekindled friendship. They took care of one another and loved the mundane issues after an extended and thrilling life. Hank, as Kahn calls him, was spry and agile even in his final decade.
However his well being began to say no after he developed vascular dementia from a stroke 5 years in the past. He was hospitalized after a second stroke in early March of this yr and despatched dwelling on hospice care after he misplaced the flexibility to swallow.
Kahn mentioned Cervantes died on the identical date, April 7, as he’d escaped demise 79 years beforehand when German pilots tried to ram his B-17 bomber out of the sky.
A memorial service for Cervantes might be held Monday at 1 p.m. at Holy Cross Chapel in Culver Metropolis.
