Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1965 Lucky Bag:

HENRY MARTIN KLEEMANN

Hailing from the corn fields of Illinois, Hammering Hank arrived here at the Academy with a slight weight problem. But after a gruelling plebe year in the fourteenth company he emerged as a physical specimen that Charles Atlas would be proud of. In high school Hank spent his fall days on the gridiron and the spring time would find him on the old cinder track. Hank amazed everybody with his ability to pull straight A’s without cracking a book. I doubt if any of us will ever forget his extra instruction sessions for those of us who were lacking in mental dexterity. Hank was so impressed with our swimming program that he took extra instruction on the side stroke in the afternoons for two years. Henry always had an eye for girls, cars and food in just about that order. Henry was the subject of many jokes but he will always be remembered for his ability to laugh along with the rest of us. His good nature and academic ability will take him far in the world.

Loss

Henry was killed when his F/A-18 flipped on the runway at Naval Air Station Miramar on December 3, 1985. He was Commanding Officer of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 4.

Other Information

From Wikipedia:

[Henry] is killed at Naval Air Station Miramar, California, when, upon landing at 0910 hrs. on a slick runway after a flight from NAS Point Mugu, California, his F/A-18A-15-MC Hornet (Lot 7), BuNo 162395,[175] skids ~5,000 feet down the 12,000 foot runway, then overturns, trapping the pilot underneath the inverted airframe.[176][177] Autopsy surgeons determined that the pilot died almost immediately after the crash from a severed spinal cord. Kleemann had nearly 4,000 flight hours, but fewer than 43 in the F/A-18. The Hornet was a nearly new airframe with only 327 flying hours being used in the operational testing of the design. Investigators pinpointed the planing link on the undercarriage whose task is to guide the gear components’ complex manoeuvers during retraction as a probable cause. If damaged during retraction after departing Point Mugu, the link may have caused the starboard wheel to be slightly out of line. As the fighter’s weight settled onto the gear leg, the airframe may have swerved so sharply that the pilot was unable to maintain control.

From Kleefamhist.com¹:

Henry Martin Kleemann was born on 2 July 1943, the oldest child of Henry and Catherine Kleemann and their only son. On 5 October 1973, Henry Martin Kleemann married Carol Anne Teano in Annapolis, MD. Carol had two children from her first marriage:

1. Steven S.S. Seiden (born 13 July 1967)<br>
2. Susan Elizabeth Seiden (19 May 1969)

Henry and Carol had two children together:
3. Michael Andrew (26 August 1974)<br> 4. Katherine Marie (13 October 1977)
They raised all four children together.

From a distant relative via email on July 19, 2019: “He grew up in rural Clinton, near Wapella. His family were members of St. Patrick’s Parish in Wapella. His mother is the sister of Bishop Edward O’Rourke, Bishop of Peoria.”

Henry was one of pilots involved shooting down two Libyan fighters over the Gulf of Sidra on Aug. 19, 1981; as his was first, he is credited with the first air-to-air kill in a F-14 Tomcat.

He is buried in Illinois.

Photographs

Source

References