Leon Bilstin was born on January 23, 1918 in Yonkers, New York, to Emil and Marie Bilstin, he was their only son. His father came from Alsace-Lorraine, and his mother came from Piedmont in Northern Italy, but she was raised in Switzerland. Leon attended public school and high school at Mount Vernon, New York, and was a Boy Scout soon worked his way up to Eagle Scout with 34 merit badges.

At seventeen years of age he embarked on his military career by enlisting in Headquarters Company of the 27th Division of the National Guard. In competition with 22 others, he won the General Haskell National Guard prize of a year's scholarship to Brooklyn Academy (preparatory school for West Point and Annapolis). After studying there for a year, he remained for another six months to act as part-time instructor for other students. He entered U.S.M.A. and completed flying and combat training after graduation.

After completing a hundred combat missions, Leon wrote his parents that he could take leave to the U.S. In September, 1944, but that he wanted to remain in Europe until the war was finished. At that time he was Squadron Operations Officer and was to have been promoted to Major in a short time. It was on September 28, 1944, that he led his squadron of P-47 Thunderbolts on a dive bombing mission against the strategic rail switch yards at Kaiserslautern, Germany. The remainder of the story was related by Kurt Paul, a wounded German pilot who was at home in Kaiserslautern on sick leave.

Captain Bilstin plane was in a dive on the target at 4:25 P.M. Suddenly his plane was struck by 20 millimeter flak—his ship continued in its almost perpendicular dive until it crashed Into a freight car in the rail yards and exploded with terrific force. No trace of his body has been found and was declared Missing in Action on September 28, 1944. His name is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing, Lorraine American Cemetery, Saint-Avold, France.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, www.abmc.gov