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Major Raphael L. Uffner (Ret.)
Raphael L. Uffner (1917–1993)Raphael Louis Uffner was born in the Bronx, New York, the first of two sons of Louis Uffner, a Columbia University-educated architect emigre from Czarist Russia; and Mi...view moreRaphael L. Uffner (1917–1993)Raphael Louis Uffner was born in the Bronx, New York, the first of two sons of Louis Uffner, a Columbia University-educated architect emigre from Czarist Russia; and Minnie Stiebel, a native-born nurse.Small, pale, and skinny, with a shock of platinum hair that begat his nickname “Whitey,” Raphael played in the streets and vacant lots of the Bronx. As a boy he was strongly drawn to the Army, influenced by the Great War photographs and movies of the 1920’s.In his early teens Raphael studied violin at Juilliard School of Music, but dropped out when he qualified for Townsend Harris High School, an elite public school in Manhattan, where he was captain of the fencing team. In 1934, two months shy of his seventeenth birthday, he entered City College of New York (CCNY), where he continued fencing, played baseball, and entered the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC).Raphael enjoyed the military service so much that he added the New York National Guard to his extra-curricular activities while at CCNY as he turned eighteen. Continuing to study toward an engineering degree, he joined the ROTC rifle team, becoming a champion marksman.Around this time, Raphael met sixteen-year-old Edythe Tompkins at his counsin’s sweet sixteen party. A few years later he and Edythe, now a dental hygienist, met serendipitously in a downtown government office. They would marry in 1942, just before he left for North Africa.During the war, Raphael served with the First Infantry Division, 26th Infantry Regiment. He earned a Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, American Defense Medal, Victory Medal, Infantryman Badge, and Fourragere in the colors of the French Medaille Militaire.After the war, Raphael resumed his studies at CCNY, completing a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering in 1948. He was a civilian project engineer for nine years at the Special Devices Center, Office of Naval Research, where he worked on radar, weapons control, electronic warfare, communications, and navigational training devices for all the Armed Forces. In 1959 he moved his family from New York to California and joined Hughes Aircraft Radar Systems Group, where he served as systems engineer in airborne radar and weapons control systems for twenty-three years, until his retirement in 1983.Raphael and Edythe raised four daughters together.In 1989, when Raphael was seventy-one, the director of the First Division Museum asked him to record some of his memories for the Museum. Two years later Raphael submitted a manuscript of over 400 pages, “Recollections of World War II with the First Infantry Division.”In late 1993, at age seventy-six, Raphael died suddenly from complications of treatment for a heart attack. Edythe lived to be ninety-seven before passing away of natural causes in 2016."Recollections of World War II with the First Infantry Division" was published posthumously by his daughter, Marilyn, in 2020. Raphael's original manuscript still resides in the First Division Museum.view less
Books by Major Raphael L. Uffner (Ret.)
Recollections of World War II with the First Infantry Division