David L. Wolman, of Stony Brook, World War II veteran, dies at 102
David Wolman, who served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, is honored as the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook celebrates the 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6. Credit: Howard Schnapp
He was an air traffic controller for the 8th Air Force, sweating out some of the deadliest missions flown by B-17 Flying Fortress bomber crews in World War II — crews of the 100th Bombardment Group, “The Bloody Hundredth,” whose gut-wrenching stories were portrayed earlier this year in the Apple TV miniseries "Masters of the Air."
The series made household names of Lt. Col. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal, Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, Maj. John C. "Bucky" Egan, lead group navigator Maj. Harry Crosby and others.
But few know the story of Cpl. David L. Wolman, whose behind-the-scenes efforts helped coordinate tide-turning missions the 100th flew during the air war in Europe — among them February 1944’s "Big Week" and the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Born Nov. 5, 1921, to Esther and Nathan Wolman in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Wolman grew up in East New York and died on July 5 — one month after being honored at 80th anniversary D-Day ceremonies at the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook, where he had lived since January 2021.
He was 102.
“He said he knew men were dead just by looking at some of those planes when they’d come back from missions — if they came back,” Nancy Wolman, of Centereach, said of her father’s war experience, noting his job included coordinating takeoffs and landings, as well as logging information on American bombers shot down and their dead, missing and injured crew. “A lot of times, he said he couldn’t even go over to the base hospital, he knew how bad it was.”
Drafted in 1942, David Wolman trained at Camp Upton in Yaphank, learned control tower operations in Champaign, Illinois, attended radio operator school at Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin, then received advanced training at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, where he once installed a radio in a B-24 Liberator bomber for a pilot he had befriended — 1940 Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon, “Old 98,” father of "NCIS" star Mark Harmon.
In August 1943, Wolman found himself manning the air traffic control tower at Thorpe Abbotts Airfield in East Anglia, England.
The 100th Bombardment Group suffered so many losses that just four of its original 38 co-pilots finished their required 25-mission tours, according to the 100th Bomb Group Foundation website.
Over the course of three missions in what came to be known as “Black Week” and included the casualty-filled Oct. 14, 1943, “Black Thursday” mission to Schweinfurt, Germany, the 100th Bombardment Group lost 28 B-17s — each with a crew of 10 men.
Including the Feb. 20-25, 1944, campaign known as “Big Week,” the 100th lost 229 planes while Wolman served at Thorpe Abbotts from 1943 to 1945.
But in a 2021 interview, Wolman said it was his experience during the D-Day invasion he found most taxing.
“Because radio silence was very important, because the Germans could pick up the signals of where our men were … there was no talking on the radio,” Wolman said in 2021, noting he went to the tower at Thorpe Abbotts at 5 a.m. to send flights of bombers off to France on June 6, 1944 — and, that he remained in that tower nonstop until 5 p.m. on June 8. "All I was hoping,” he said, “was everybody was coming home. Thank God, whatever we sent out … our planes came home.”
During his time at Thorpe Abbotts, Wolman and Rosenthal helped conduct Jewish services on Friday evenings, because the base didn't have a full-time rabbi.
After the war, Wolman returned to Thomas Jefferson High School to finish his final credits, graduating at age 24.
He met Gladys Buzin in 1946, though the initial relationship didn’t last long, Nancy Wolman said.
“He was skinny and a redhead, and he told my mother he wanted to be a mortician,” she recalled. “My mother said, ‘He looked like a mortician’ — and they only dated a few months.”
Following the breakup, Wolman got engaged to another woman, though they never got married. In late 1948, Nancy Wolman said, her father called Buzin, asking for a date on New Year’s Eve.
“She told him she was busy for New Year’s Eve, but was free on New Year’s Day,” Nancy Wolman said.
The couple went on that date on Jan. 1, 1949, and got married on Dec. 17, 1949.
They remained together until Jan. 22, 2016, when Gladys Wolman died at age 92.
An avid stamp collector, Wolman briefly worked for the post office, then was an accountant for textile manufacturer M. Lowenstein in Manhattan. He became a tower controller at Kennedy Airport, then known as Idlewild, before taking a job as a flight service specialist and meteorologist at Long Island MacArthur Airport in 1963, moving his family to Centereach. He worked at MacArthur for 30 years.
Nancy Wolman recalled fondly the family vacations to Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Virginia, and even to Halifax, Canada, though she said most involved car trips — because her father hated to fly.
Wolman was buried next to his wife at Beth Moses Cemetery in West Babylon.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a sister, Miriam Smith, 95, of Tamarac, Florida. His brother, Julius, also a World War II veteran, died on Feb. 10 at age 97.
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
