Leask Hermann, 90, died Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012, at the Hospice of the Valley in Mesa.
He was born Oct. 9, 1921, in Waterloo, Iowa. He graduated from West High School in Waterloo and attended Iowa State Teachers College before being drafted into the United States Army Air Corps, where he served as an aerial gunner on a B-24.
His plane went down on his eighth mission over Friedrichshafen, Germany. He was the fifth man out of the damaged plane and ended up between the Rhine River and the Swiss town of Au. He was interned in Switzerland until the French Underground managed to get him to France in 1944. He received an honorable discharge in 1945.
Following his service he graduated from Iowa State Teachers College and later became an industrial engineer for Rath Packing in Waterloo. He worked at a number of companies in Kansas, Iowa, California and Arizona before coming back home and working with the John Deere Tractor Works in Waterloo where he retired in 1986.
He and his wife Ruth relocated to the Prescott/Dewey area in Arizona, eventually moving down to the Phoenix area.
He is survived by his wife Ruth (Taplin), his sons Stephen (Rita) and David; his grandson Robin (Monica) Hermann, brothers, George and Edgar and their wives, Mary and Patricia, two sisters-in-law, Jean (Taplin) Clark and Marilyn (Taplin) Brickley, and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his father, George E. Hermann; his mother, Elizabeth H. Hermann (Leask); his sister, Dorothy; and brothers, Charles, Stanley and Philip.
A memorial service will be held Feb. 3, 2012, at the Mission Del Sol Presbyterian Church in Tempe, AZ. The family asks that in lieu of flowers contributions be made to the Hospice of the Valley in Mesa.