Philip Kahn did not have the chance to know his twin brother. Born in December 1919, this veteran of the Second World War, lost his twin, Samuel, who quickly succumbed to the Spanish flu after their birth. A century later, it was he who was cut down by the coronavirus, report several American media.
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Philip Kahn embarked on a training program for air force pilots in 1940. He had participated in the battle of Iwo Jima, Japanese island, in 1945, then in air raids after the atomic bombs were launched on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, told Newsday Wednesday, in its online edition. He was awarded two bronze stars during the conflict. "War is terrible," Philip told Newsday on his 98th birthday in 2017. "Soldiers are killed, but civilians suffer too, and women and children are the ones who suffer the most." "
"The story repeats itself"
Philip Kahn's grandson Warren Zysman remembers that his grandfather had been afraid of a new pandemic all his life. "He talked about it very frequently," he told CNN. "When we were talking, he said to me: 'I told you that history repeats itself, 100 years is not that long'" . Philip Kahn had symptoms of the coronavirus, especially cough, before he died on April 17, and he probably knew he had Covid-19, his grandson continued. "In the last few days, he talked a lot about his brother." All his life, the American veteran kept the memory of his late brother alive, assures Warren Zysman. "About every public holiday, every event, he evokes his brother Samuel," he said. "It clearly made a hole in his heart that he could never meet his dead twin a few weeks after the birth ."
Philip Kahn was buried on Long Island on Monday, according to Newsday. According to his grandson, the veteran had always "wanted a great military burial" . The cemetery therefore brought in two members of the armed forces to perform a military ceremony.
Two members of the armed forces were present at the burial of Philip Kahn. Queen Village Republican Club / Facebook.
He was not the first to die from coronavirus after losing a parent in the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic. A woman who died on April 14 in San Antonio (Texas), at the age of 96, had lost her older sister but never knew her, according to News4SA. The so-called “Spanish” flu pandemic, which raged between September 1918 and April 1919, claimed an estimated 50 million lives and is considered to be the most lethal in history in such a short period of time. She killed five times more than the battles of the First World War.