Hackensack High School
Yearbook Photo
1943

Arthur Janos November 7, 2018 taken outside
St. Joseph’s Rectory in Oradell, NJ. where I had a conversation with him about his service.

As I was going into the St. Joseph’s Rectory in Oradell on November 7, 2018, I saw this man struggling to navigate three steps and as he finished the third he relaxed and leaned on his cane to take a break.  I saw he had a World War II hat on, so I asked him what branch of service he was and where he had served.  I really did not expect much of a conversation because of his struggle down those three steps, but to my surprise he was extremely lucid.

He told me where, when, and what he had done during his service.  How he had served at the end of the war and kept getting moved around and how the radar school, and everything he was learning, was all obsolete at the time technology had moved so quickly.   I began to talk about the Hackensack website, and I asked him if he had graduated from Hackensack High School since he told me he had grown up in New Milford.  Arthur Janos told me he had graduated from Hackensack High School in 1943 and his closest friend growing up, who also went to Hackensack High School, was Garry Leonard. They had done everything together and were both in the Boy Scouts together too.  We talked for quite a while and when he went to move he was unable to because of his ailments of age. 

Arthur Janos told me he was born on December 29, 1925 so he is almost 93. I helped him to his car and as he drove away all I could think of was this wonderfully engaging man who was once young as his best friend, Garry Leonard, was who had died so many years before, and he was standing before me as a living history to give testimony of himself and his service and that of his best friend Garry Leonard.
Garry Leonard had lost all of these years on that fateful day over Germany as a Navigator in a B 17 Flying Fortress on February 6, 1945.  Let us always be grateful for these two friends sacrifice and the thoughtfulness of Arthur Janos to never forget his close friend and his Supreme Sacrifice.

Arthur Janos also knew Sheldon Freschi growing up and when I mentioned the Bund House he told me that many Germans in town were very supportive of Germany when Hitler first took over and that was why the German Bund met there.

Click here to view the German Bund material.

Written by:
Bob Meli
November 8, 2018

ARTHUR JANOS, Technician 4/c

Entered service February 1, 1944…Trained at Keesler Field, Mississippi, (Basic Training); Truax Field, Wisconsin, (Radio Mech. School): Chanute Field, Illinois, (Electronics School); Boca Raton Field, Florida, (Radar School);  Sea Girt, New Jersey, (Navy Radar School)….
Assigned to A.A.F. Aircraft Radar Unit at Boca Raton Field, Florida; Radar operator, mechanic on
U.S.S. Costa Rica Victory…Served at Sea Duty on U.S.S. Costa Rica between United States and European Theatre of Operations….Date of discharge June 5, 1946….
Graduated New Milford Junior High School 1940.   

NEW MILFORD IN WORLD WAR II
written by Teresa Martin
May 30, 1947

Background image of Radar Technicians working on radar in 1944-45 obtained from: https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/p-61/maintenance-of-the-scr-720-radar-system-on-a-p-61a-of-the-6th-nfs-saipan//