Saratoga reburial honors WWI pilot, wife

From TimesUnion.com: Saratoga reburial honors WWI pilot, wife

SARATOGA -- The youngest wore her military fatigues. Her father, a Vietnam combat veteran, arrived on a motorcycle in black leather. His father, who rode tanks in World War II, came in a collared-shirt and jeans.

As the summer sun glared and trumpets sounded across Saratoga national cemetery Friday, three generations of Leavitt soldiers stood at salute above a freshly dug grave. Steel cables from a flatbed truck lowered two concrete burial vaults into the earth. The rusty, dirt-covered vessels, which were unearthed from an Albany County cemetery only hours earlier, carried the remains of the family's Rensselaer County relatives, 2nd Lt. Henry Joseph Leavitt, a World War I Canadian fighter pilot, and his wife, Lilly.

He had enlisted in the Canadian Royal Air Force in 1917 to battle the Germans before the U.S. had entered the war. Although Leavitt served under a different flag, his son and grandson fought to have his and his wife's remains moved from Mount Pleasant Cemetery in New Scotland. On Friday, several family members joined cemetery workers at a 30-minute reburial ceremony in Saratoga, which elicited emotional memories.

"He was the kindest, most quiet fellow you ever saw," Henry Leavitt, the fighter pilot's 90-year-old son said after the ceremony. "He never raised a hand at us, never swore, never yelled at any of us."

The Leavitts are a true military family. Ancestors fought in the Civil War and Revolutionary War, and three members who died within the last decade were interred at Saratoga.

Born in Maine, Henry Joseph Leavitt attended the Virginia Military Academy. After joining the Royal Air Force, he trained in Toronto, other parts of Canada and in Scotland, according to the book "New England Aviators." The pilot was assigned to the RAF 65th Squadron in April 1918. His plane malfunctioned during a May flight, forcing him to ditch it in trenches behind German lines.

The enemy captured a wounded Henry Joseph Leavitt and confined him to a prison camp until almost Christmas of that year, "New England Aviators" says.

Henry Joseph Leavitt took a two-month leave before returning to the squadron. It's not known how many missions he flew, but he met Lilly in England and married her there before returning stateside. The couple resided for most of their lives in East Greenbush and later moved to Voorheesville. The airman taught shop classes at Philip Schuyler High School in Albany and built homes. He died in 1964 at the age of 73; she predeceased him by six weeks at the age of 64.

"He wanted to fight the Germans," grandson John Leavitt of North Greenbush said. "He was a very patriotic guy."

John Leavitt, a retired state trooper, fought two tours in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. His daughters, Staff Sgt. Brooke Leavitt, 30, and Chief Warrant Officer Heather Langley, 32, serve in the New York Army National Guard. After the vaults were lowered Friday, Brooke Leavitt, of West Sand Lake, tossed a family name tag that she and her father had worn on their uniforms into the grave.

"I think it's great that they were finally able to do it while my grandfather was still alive," she said.

Plans are in the works to have the cremated remains of the late couple's daughter, Isabelle Swartz, who served in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II, buried at the cemetery, family members said. Swartz, of Delmar and Colonie, died at the age of 83 last April.

The family had tried for years to relocate their relatives' remains, but Henry Joseph Leavitt's status as a Canadian veteran held it up. Those wishing to be buried in veterans' cemeteries must serve in the U.S. military, or have a spouse who did. John Leavitt produced military records that showed his grandfather had trained American pilots in the Midwest after World War I, which cemetery officials accepted as sufficient, John Leavitt said. The ex-soldier rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle to the event with members of the Combat Veterans Association.

The couple's headstone will be put up in 30 to 60 days. Henry, the pair's only surviving child, and other members of the family said the relocation of the set of remains would ultimately reunite the family of veterans in death. All plan to be buried one day near the World War I prisoner of war.

"We all want to be together again someday," Henry Leavitt said.