Dave_W
Moderator
Staff member
Let's also keep foremost in minds as we remember Lefty that he wasn't just a great FFer and pioneer of our favorite pastime....He was also a WW2 veteran, a group of people that are fast disappearing (they're all 90something nowadays) that connect us to a critical time and event.
Lefty was a young artillery observer in the European Theatre of Operations during the brutal fighting and miserable weather conditions of the winter of 1944/45. Lefty was in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest American action of the entire war.
Because he was so long lived and so active until so late in his life, it's easy to forget that, for his generation, service in "the war" was taken largely for granted. Many of the great fly fishing characters from his generation were WW2 vets: think AJ McLane, or Jack Samson, or Ted Williams.
I think Stu Apt may be the last living WW2 vet from the well known FFing community(?).
Anyway, Lefty was a national treasure for FFing...but symbolized the quiet humility about service in WW2 - a service that seems almost heroic to our sensibilities today - that was so common among his comrades of that Greatest Generation.
Lefty was a young artillery observer in the European Theatre of Operations during the brutal fighting and miserable weather conditions of the winter of 1944/45. Lefty was in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest American action of the entire war.
Because he was so long lived and so active until so late in his life, it's easy to forget that, for his generation, service in "the war" was taken largely for granted. Many of the great fly fishing characters from his generation were WW2 vets: think AJ McLane, or Jack Samson, or Ted Williams.
I think Stu Apt may be the last living WW2 vet from the well known FFing community(?).
Anyway, Lefty was a national treasure for FFing...but symbolized the quiet humility about service in WW2 - a service that seems almost heroic to our sensibilities today - that was so common among his comrades of that Greatest Generation.
