Abe and Paul Lehrer pose together for a photo during a recent family gathering. (Photos courtesy of Lehrer family)
Abe and Paul Lehrer pose together for a photo during a recent family gathering. (Photos courtesy of Lehrer family)
Abe Lehrer, then a technical sergeant based at RAF Bovingdon, smiles during work at the base’s communication squadron in 1963. Well known in the community at the time, residents and colleagues nicknamed him the “Mayor of Bovingdon.” (Photos courtesy of Lehrer family)
Abe Lehrer spent more than 50 years working — both in and out of uniform — for U.S. forces in England, personifying the connection between the two allied nations.
He died Jan. 27 at the age of 86, leaving behind a family that is equal parts British and American, along with a legacy of service at almost every U.S. installation in England.
Born in New York City, Lehrer joined the Army in 1941, served for four years, quit and joined again in 1953. He later enlisted in the Air Force in 1955, forging a path his two sons, and two grandsons would later follow.
While stationed at Bushey Hall with the Army, Lehrer met his wife, Vivianne, a Briton. The couple married in 1954 and had three children, Peter, Paul and Donna, who, regardless of their English accents, consider themselves as American as the military brats they grew up with.
“We’re not of one origin, we’re of both,” his daughter explained. “We enjoyed the best of both worlds.”
After stints in the U.K. and U.S., Lehrer retired from Sembach Air Base, Germany, in 1970 as a master sergeant, a rank that seems to be a family tradition. Both Peter, 50, and Paul, 52, retired from the U.S. Air Force in the same rank.
“We just seemed to get stuck on E-7. We can’t get past it,” joked Paul Lehrer, whose son Carl, 26, is also a senior airmen in the Air Force. And Peter’s son, Adam, 20, recently graduated from Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
“Dad always talked about what the Air Force could do for you. He always said it was all about getting an education and getting training,” said Paul Lehrer, adding that his father convinced his son to join the service after his attempts failed.
Abe Lehrer’s pitch was so compelling he even persuaded his British son-in-law, Glenn Turnbull, to join the U.S. Air Force and “pulled a few strings” to help get him in.
“He talked so many people into it, he should have been a recruiter,” said his daughter, Donna Turnbull, 42, who lives near Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., where her husband is now stationed.
After retiring from active duty as a communications expert, Lehrer went on to spend another 27 years in a similar civilian role at RAFs throughout the U.K., earning multiple commendations along the way. At one point, he worked at RAF Chicksands alongside both his sons who were stationed there.
He grudgingly retired at the age of 80 from the 420th Air Base Squadron at RAF Fairford, where he was known as “Dad or Grandpa, depending on how old you were,” said Victoria Hankins, chief of base support for the squadron.
But retirement was bittersweet for Lehrer, who couldn’t seem to break away from working for the military. After leaving Fairford, he worked part-time for two years at an Air Force and Army Exchange gas station in West Ruislip.
“And he would have carried on working but they shut the base on him,” Peter Lehrer said.
His children and wife say Lehrer was full of life up to the very end when he succumbed to pneumonia at a hospital in Huntingdon, near RAF Alconbury and the Lehrer’s home in St. Neots.
