Nathan Maranz, 22-year-old New York Jewish pilot in the American Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force listed as missing since June 21, is a prisoner of war in Germany, his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Jacob Maranz announced here following receipt of a letter from him written in a German prison camp.
In his letter, Maranz relates that after being shot down June 21 over the English Channel, he swam for an hour and a half despite severe burns on his feet until he was picked up by a German rescue boat. A bullet had set his gasoline tank afire and he had parachuted into the Channel.
After the disappearance of Maranz on June 21, the British Air Ministry notified his parents that he was "missing" and sent them a letter their son had left to be forwarded to them "in case of death". In it he said he did not expect to come out of the war alive, but would continue to fight for the cause of democracy as long as his eyes were good. This, his mother said in New York, was a reference to three plastic surgery operations performed after April 6. Her son, she explained, flew with the squadron between operations, his head swathed in bandages. He was scheduled for a fourth operation the day after he was shot down.
Young Maranz was born in New York and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Pharmacy, 1939.
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