Today is Harry Raymond Horak’s 100th birthday. The mail carrier knows. He has been delivering stacks of cards to Arcadia Gardens in the lead-up to the big day. By Friday, the World War II veteran and retired tax accountant had received about 200 birthday greetings from grateful Valley residents.
“Morning Carrie,” he texted his daughter-in-law. “Just received another huge amount of mail. Bigger than what I received before. Will start reading it. I have read all the mail I received before.”
Carol Saunders, of Arcadia, said her father-in-law remains his meticulous self in the face of the birthday deluge.
“He opens each carefully and reads them, he’s so happy,” she said.
His milestone birthday is the latest achievement in an accomplished life. Horak was born in the tiny farm town of Munden, Kansas in 1921. His parents, George and Blanche, ran a farm. A tornado destroyed that farm and Horak said his father worked at odd jobs until his death at age 45.
When World War II broke out in 1941, young Horak tried to enlist in the Air Corps, but just like Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, he was deemed underweight.
“So I taught in a one-room schoolhouse for six months, and I tried to gain weight and was accepted,” Horak said. “I passed the test for bombardier and navigator and I got my pilots’ license.”
Horak trained at an Air Corps facility north of Minneapolis, then in Pueblo, Colorado, where he met his wife Vivian.
Assigned to the 449th bomb group called “The Flying Horsemen,” Horak served in Grottaglia, in southern Italy. In his careful penmanship, he listed the mission number, date, place and target of each sortie and mission he flew from Aug. 12, 1944 to Feb. 1, 1945.
His airplane was called “Raggadaz” because it’s tail had been shot off during one mission, Horak said with a smile. One point of pride? Everyone in his crew survived.
First Lt. Horak served in active duty from 1942-1944 and then in the Air Force reserves until 1957. By then, Vivian wanted to settle down. Horak earned a business administration degree from the University of Colorado, then worked in Denver, Nebraska and Minneapolis.
The family moved to Santa Monica in 1956 and Horak worked at Douglas Aircraft (which later became McDonnell Douglas, then Boeing). He retired after 30 years, in 1984. By then, their three children were grown: Don, a computer programmer, born in 1949; David, a physician, born in 1953; and Carol, a high school English teacher, born in 1957.
Harry and Vivian stayed in Santa Monica until 2012. They lived in Duarte until Vivian passed away in 2015. They were married for 70 years.
Harry moved to Arcadia three years ago, where he has persevered despite the limits placed on him by age and the pandemic. He has lost two friends in this time, and he is wheelchair bound. But he is still polite and alert, punctuating his conversation with “Pardon?”
He texts and chats with his children, and keeps tabs on his four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
“Harry is fastidious, honest, never breaks rules,” Saunders said. “He gave us a box of his records from the service, and he has a detailed list of each mission. He loved being part of the Air Corps. He is also very gentle and generous with his family.”
Her Nextdoor post requesting birthday cards for the World War II veteran garnered more than 400 comments and almost 600 reactions. Many people shared stories about the war service of their own parent or grandparent. One helped get Horak a commendation from the Arcadia City Council. The Arcadia Police Department promised to try to drive by and greet him.
It will be a marvelous way to celebrate a great man, his daughter-in-law said. And a reminder that the world hasn’t forgotten the skinny boy from Kansas. Not by a long shot.