Lieutenant Jack Terzian, 24...

 On May 22, 1944, while flying a P-47D Thunderbolt coded YJ-Z "Marty"(named after his girlfriend and wife) with the 353rd Fighter Group, 351st Fighter Squadron based at Raydon, England, Lieutenant Jack Terzian, 24 years old from Brooklyn, New York, became a POW. Lt. Terzian crashed at Letterhouten, Belgium and was able to evade capture through the Belgium Underground until July 12, 1944 when he was captured by the Gestapo and imprisoned in St. Gilles prison in Brussels. He escaped when the train carrying them out of the city derailed on September 12, 1944.

Jack and his family immigrated to the U. S. in 1924 where he attended school in Brooklyn and in Manhattan, New York. He was a photographer in civilian life before he enlisted in the U. S. Army Air corps on March 11, 1941. When the U. S. entered World War II in December 1941, Jack applied for and was accepted to military flying school. He graduated as a pilot and Lieutenant in November 1942. He became a P47 Fighter Pilot and departed for England with his flying group in June 1943 where he flew bomber escort and other fighter-bomber missions. In April 1944 on his way back to England after a bomber escort mission over north Germany, his plane, which he had named Marty for the girl he left at home, ran out of fuel, causing him to bail out of his aircraft into the North Sea about 80 miles from the British coast. He survived the icy waters for the next four hours before being rescued by a British launch. In May 1944 on a dive-bomber mission over German occupied Belgium, his P47 was hit by German anti-aircraft fire while he was strafing a flak tower. Jack crash-landed his aircraft near Brussels, Belgium and was rescued by the Belgian Underground who helped him evade capture for the next two months. The Gestapo raided the home in which he was hiding, and he was turned over to the Wehrmacht and incarcerated in St. Gilles prison. Two months later as the Allied Ground Forces were approaching Brussels, the Germans began evacuating Brussels by railroad train. The Belgian underground derailed one of the cars of the train, known as the Phantom Train, and Jack and forty other allied airmen escaped during the Germans' panic. He returned to England and then home to New York.

He married his Marty (Martha Tait) on 15 October 1944 in Chester, Virginia.

His 23-year military career in the Air Force included assignments in New Jersey, Michigan, New Hampshire, Alaska, Arizona, Texas; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and he retired as a Lt. Colonel at Dyess AFB in Abilene in 1963. For meritorious service while a member of the U. S. Air Force, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross with one Oak Leaf Cluster; Air Force Medal with Four Oak Leaf Clusters; Purple Heart; POW Medal; and the Air Force Commendation Medal.

After retiring from the USAF, he was an agent for New York Life Insurance Co. in Abilene for 25 years, retiring again in 1988. He was a former member of the Abilene Optimist Club, the national, state, and local Life Underwriters Association, and the Board of Directors of the Better Business Bureau. He also served as chairman of the Ethics Committee of the Abilene Life Underwriters Association and is a current member of the Retired Officers Association, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Disabled Veterans (DAV), the Air Force Escape and Evasion Society, and the P47 Thunderbolt Association.

Jack Terzian passed away in June 2013, he was 93 years old. Thank You Sir, for your service!

1919