Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency, today postponed his scheduled trip to the United States after receiving official confirmation from the Air Ministry that his 24-year old son, Michael, a flyer in the Royal Air Force, is missing.
The information from the Air Ministry stated that Michael is reported as having failed to return from a patrol assignment. The place of the actual operations was not mentioned, but it is known that he was sent out on a reconnaissance flight to Brest shortly before the German battleships steamed from there into the Dover straits last Thursday.
Dr. Weizmann received the message from the Air Ministry over the telephone five minutes before he and Mrs. Weizmann were ready to board an airplane to Lisbon for the flight to New York. They immediately cancelled their passage and returned from the air field to London to await more information on the fate of their son.
The blow for Dr. and Mrs. Weizmann is especially hard because Dr. Weizmann regarded Michael, who is a gifted chemist, as his successor in conducting the important research work in chemistry on which he is now engaged. Michael, a lieutenant in the air force, was in charge of a fighter plane. His craft was last heard from when his radio operator signalled that engine trouble had developed while the plane was over the Atlantic. Last week Michael was given a special 24-hour furlough to say good-bye to his parents prior to their scheduled departure for the United States. Dr. Weizmann’s older son served with the British forces until recently when he was discharged on account of ill health.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
