In an emergency, everyone reacts differently. Some freeze or hide, others panic and run, but the hero keeps their composure and swiftly takes action to keep themselves and others safe.
WWII veteran and 103-year-old Pickerington resident, Harvey Levine, is one of those heroes. His wartime act of inhibited bravery saved not only his life but the lives of others around him.
Called to serve
While he didn’t come from a military family, Levine always felt called to serve. As a young man in the early 1940s, he joined the Army Air Corps as the U.S. entered WWII. His first official mission as a bombardier-navigator took him to Europe, where he received a menacing call from the German Embassy.
“The phone rings. That is an oddity in itself. ‘Hello. This is the German Embassy calling. We want to welcome you to the fight. We will not harm you today, but watch out for tomorrow.’ How would you like a call like that? That’s the call I got, and I knew I had to fight. There was no question about it,” Levine says.
The housing where Levine and his group were staying was bombed and shot at every day by German soldiers and during in-flight missions, metal scraps and other shrapnel often hit their planes. Although Levine was able to escape death a multitude of times, the fear of getting harmed or perishing was inescapable.
While fighting in a war in any capacity takes courage, Levine distinguished himself on one mission in particular. Following procedure, Levine’s B-24 bomber plane crew opened the bomb bay doors mid-air to drop activated weapons, but what happened next was unexpected.
One of the bombs did not release, and with the bomb stuck, the plane could not land. With no other options, Levine crawled from his position at the nose of the plane through a small opening and entered the bomb bay. With the bay doors open and the plane flying more than 25,000 feet in the air, all that separated Levine from a free-fall was a catwalk less than a foot in width.
While he didn’t realize at the time, the bomb bay where Levine had been diffusing and dislodging the bomb was at a temperature of -44 degrees Fahrenheit, leaving him with lifelong frostbite injuries.
“I froze my hands, my ears, my everything. I had to say that if I don’t diffuse the bomb, we don’t come back, and that’s why I did it,” he says. “I just decided somebody had to do it, and I decided it was going to be me.”
He struggled to get the bomb diffused, and in the process of dislodging it, the plane lost its hydraulic system, meaning it no longer had brakes. While the crew considered jumping out of the plane, they ultimately decided to attempt landing.
At 140 miles per hour, the plane touched the 3-mile runway as the crew headed to the tail of the plane, dragging to create resistance and help the plane stop. After a hellish mission, everyone on board was shaken but alive.
A special reunion
Levine’s brother, Erwin also served in WWII. At one point, the two brothers hadn’t seen each other in three years, and neither knew if the other was alive and well, but they just so happened to arrive in England at the same place, at the same time.
“Somebody got off the plane and I recognized that, I said, ‘My God, I think that’s my brother,’ and it was amazing,” Levine says. “We both kind of were a little hysterical.”
Honor
Due to Levine’s courage, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, among other medals and distinctions.
“I knew I had a job to do, and if you do it to the best of your ability, that’s all you can do,” he says. “(I was given) the biggest damn medal I ever saw. I kid, ‘How about a couple bucks or a cup of coffee?’ They said, ‘We don’t do that.’
Love and war
After his service, Levine returned to his hometown of Cleveland.
Levine's wife, Sally
There, he was joyfully reunited with his better half: his late wife, Sally.
The two met when they were 15 and were married in their early 20s while Levine was in military training.
“I remember the night I looked at her and I said, ‘Sally, do you want to get married?’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ I remember that that was an important part of our life,” he says.
Sally was Levine’s one true love, and they were married for more than 50 years before Sally passed in the early ‘90s. Levine describes her as a warm, accepting person who was liked by everyone she met.
“She was just Miss Happiness, she would like you if you were a good person…That’s the kind of person she was,” Levine says. “Everybody said, anywhere we went, they wanted to adopt her, seriously. I took her to Hawaii; she wanted to go so bad, and they almost wouldn’t let her come back home.”
The couple had three daughters. However, their oldest, Pamela, passed due to cancer in 2017.
“She’s with her mother now,” Levine says.
The couple’s other children, Ann and Debra, had children of their own, and at 103, Levine has great-great-grandpa status.
“My father is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring people one could have the pleasure of knowing,” Ann says. “Throughout my formative years, he exemplified exceptional kindness, provided unwavering support and showcased remarkable intellectual abilities, while also loving my mother unconditionally. He encouraged me to pursue my academic degrees all the way through my doctorate in metaphysics, while teaching me to overcome challenges, and honoring a promise to my mother to refrain from swearing.”
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com
