Plaque, ceremony honor veteran from which their post name is derived
By: Joseph Harvie
The sign on a small building on Major Road reads: Lt. John Farnkopf American Legion Post 401.
The post, chartered 59 years ago, is named in honor of Lt. Farnkopf, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot from Monmouth Junction who was shot down and killed in World War II.
Now, 62 years after his death, friends and members of the Legion post have honored the short life of Lt. Farnkopf.
On Friday in honor of Veterans Day, Joe Spataro, a post member who lives on Ridge Road, presented a plaque to the Legion that tells the story of how Lt. Farnkopf died.
Lt. Farnkopf grew up on Major Road and spent time hunting in the area and fishing at Deans Pond. He went to Middlesex County Vocational School in New Brunswick with fellow township residents Charles Weber and Al Kady.
In 1943, Lt. Farnkopf joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, was trained to be a pilot, and was shipped out to Europe to fight in World War II, according to military paperwork.
On Nov. 11, 1944, he was sent on what would be his final mission in his B-51 Mustang. It was a search and rescue mission and, while on his way back, the plane crashed. Lt. Farnkopf was able to eject from the plane, but did not survive the fall. But that was not known at the time.
"I guess he just couldn’t make it," Mr. Weber said. "He went down in a mountain range and your chances of landing safely there are not very good."
On Nov. 12, his family received a telegram from the U.S. Army stating that Lt. Farnkopf was missing in action. The telegram was addressed to his father, but his father never received it. On the same day that the lieutenant went missing, his father, John Farnkopf, died.
It wouldn’t be until May 5, 1954, that his family was sent a second telegram changing Lt. Farnkopf’s status from Missing in Action to Died in Action.
On Dec. 8, 1953, two Austrians who were searching for scrap metal found Lt. Farnkopf’s body hanging in a tree high in the Alps, the Army paperwork stated.
After the letter was sent home, a funeral was held in the Dayton Cemetery on Georges Road. Mr. Spataro and Mr. Weber were pallbearers and gave an American flag to the lieutenant’s mother, Florence Farnkopf.
"It was a small town then," Mr. Spataro said. "We all knew each other."
Mr. Spataro said that a few months after the funeral Ms. Farnkopf’s mother donated a parcel of land on Major Road to the newly formed American Legion and the members decided to name the post in the lieutenant’s honor.
"When we started the Legion, it was just after the war," Mr. Spataro said. "We were as poor as church mice. We used to meet at the firehouse and in the first aid building."
However, once more members joined, the Legion decided to build the post on the Major Road parcel, where the Legion currently meets. The land was donated a few years after Lt. Farnkopf’s death, Mr. Spataro said, and it took the Legion several years to get enough money together to build the Post Hall.
By all accounts Lt. Farnkopf was a good guy.
"He was a nice guy," Mr. Weber said. "We used to go hunting together in the woods here."
Mr. Kady said that he remembers the Farnkopf family being dedicated to the township.
"That family was one of the nicest families around here," Mr. Kady said. "I remember finding out that he had died and I thought that it was just terrible."

