Tom Lynch: Catasauqua World War II Air Ace - WFMZ Allentown

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Tom Lynch: Catasauqua World War II Air Ace - WFMZ Allentown

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CATASAUQUA, Pa. -

U.S. World War II veterans are dying at the rate of 1000 a month. As they do, it is difficult to remember that they were once youthful men and women who patriotically at the risk of their lives took on the most soul-destroying regimes that the world has ever known and defeated them soundly.

But for all those who came back to live full lives in quiet suburbs with grandchildren at hand, many never did. And among their number was a bright, talented young man named Tom Lynch who grew up in Catasauqua, Pa.

Old photos show a boyish face, what the 1940s would have called “matinee idol” good looks. Lynch could have been a poster model for the Boy Scouts and in fact was an Eagle Scout and a highly decorated one.

Whatever his post-war fate might have been, it clearly would have been one of promise. But after a string of 20 aerial dogfights that put him high among the ranks of America’s aviation aces, Lynch was to meet his end heroically and tragically over the South Pacific.

Tom Lynch was born in 1916. His father started working at Bethlehem Steel as a laborer but by the 1930s had an office job. He looked forward to the day when his son, who had an interest in engineering, would join him there.  From Catasauqua High School in 1937.


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