WWII bomber pilot Robert Rosenthal dies

Miller wrote that Rosenthal never talked about his passion to risk everything to fight Nazis. A rumor arose that he had relatives in German concentration camps. When asked directly, he replied, "That was a lot of hooey."

He said: "I have no personal reasons. Everything I've done or hope to do is because I hate persecution. A human being has to look out for other human beings or there's no civilization."

His third mission was to bomb Muenster on Oct. 10, 1943. After the American fighter escorts reached their range and turned for home, the 13 bombers in the group were attacked by some 200 German fighters. The skies were filled with flak and flames, creating "an aerial junkyard," according to a gunner.

Rosenthal's plane dropped its bombs, but had two engines out, a gaping hole in one wing, and three injured gunners. He put the bomber through a harrowing series of evasive maneuvers and somehow made it back to England. None of the other 12 planes did.

In September 1944, Rosenthal's plane was hit by flak over France and he made a forced landing, dulling his consciousness as well as breaking his arm and nose. He did not remember how, but the French resistance got him back to England.

On a February 1945 mission to bomb Berlin, he was shot down and rescued by Russians on the outskirts of the city. He was sent back to England on a circuitous route that wound through Poland, Moscow, Kiev, Tehran, Cairo, Greece, and Naples.

That turned out to be his last mission, as the European war soon ended. He volunteered to fight in the Pacific, and was training to fly B-29s in Florida when Japan capitulated.

Rosenthal returned to his law firm, but seized the chance to join the team prosecuting Nazis in Nuremburg. On the ocean voyage to Germany, he met another lawyer on the prosecutorial staff, Phillis Heller, whom he married in Nuremberg.

In addition to her, he is survived by his sons Steven, of Newton, Mass., and Dan, of White Plains; his daughter, Peggy Rosenthal, of Manhattan; four grandchildren; and two great-granddaughters.

As part of his duties during the trials, Rosenthal interviewed Hermann Goering, commander of the German air force and the second-highest-ranked Nazi during most of the war, and Wilhelm Keitel, a top German general.

"Seeing these strutting conquerors after they were sentenced — powerless, pathetic and preparing for the hangman — was the closure I needed," he said. "Justice had overtaken evil. My war was over."

Rosenthal always wondered about the unexploded cannon shell found rolling around in one of his plane's fuel tanks after the Muenster raid. Had a slave laborer in a Nazi munitions factory sabotaged the shell?