SwiftVets.com

[GM Strong]

Author David Westheimer Dies at 88

LOS ANGELES - Novelist David Westheimer, who wrote "My Sweet Charlie" and "Von Ryan's Express," which was turned into a movie starring Frank Sinatra, has died at the age of 88.
Westheimer died Tuesday of heart failure at UCLA Medical Center, according to his son, Fred.

During World War II, the former editor and columnist for the Houston Post served in the Army Air Forces as a navigator aboard a B-24 bomber. His bomber was shot down by Italian fighter planes and he spent 28 months as a prisoner of war until he was released in 1945.

Westheimer drew upon his experiences when he wrote "Von Ryan's Express," a story about an American soldier leading his fellow POWs on a daring escape from the Germans in Italy.

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A gracious man. I traded some e-mails with him a few years ago and he autographed by mail a copy of his POW experiences in "Sitting It Out" for me, a good book. (He was in Stalag Luft III-South Compound where my dad was as well. They were liberated from Stalag VIIA April 29, 1945.) God Bless a man of the sort that has not been seen in Hollywood for a long time.
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8th Army Korea 68-69

[1991932]

Quite a life. Quite a story.

Thanks, GM Strong.
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Former "War Criminal"