Dedication

MONROE — At a flag dedication ceremony Saturday, the Mansion Ridge Homeowners honored two local Monroe World War II heroes as well as first responder and veterans groups.

The honorees
Sidney Tendler was recently nominated by state Sen. William J. Larkin Jr. to be in the state Senate Veterans Hall of Fame. Tendler attained the rank of sergeant while serving in the Army Air Corps. He served in the 7th Emergency Rescue Squadron as a radio operator. He received the Army Good Conduct Medal; the American Campaign Medal: The Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal; The WW II Victory Medal: The NYS Medal of Merit and Honorable Discharge pin.

He is the Commander of the Jewish War Veterans Post 758 and a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Harvey Horn was attached to the 772nd Bomber Squadron. On March 20, 1945, he was a navigator of the B-17G Bomber. The plane was hit by enemy fire over Yugoslavia. With one engine on fire, two engines not working and the fourth barely working, pilot John Lincoln and co-pilot Lorin Millard flew the plane over the Alps and ditched it into the Adriatic Sea without breaking up. All 10 crew members survived and got into rubber boats.

Almost immediately they became prisoners of war of the German Navy.

For 36 days Horn and the crew was held captive, not knowing what would happen to them until they and other POWs were able to capture German guards and turn them over to the U.S. 3rd Army Blackhawk Division.

After Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's miracle emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in January 2009, Horn spent months petitioning the Air Force and finally pilots Lincoln and Millard received the Distinguished Flying Crosses for saving their crews lives.

Larkin presented Tendler and Horn with special proclamations.