A 100-Year-Old WW II Veteran Philip Kahn Dies of COVID-19, His Twin Brother Died in the 1919 Influenza Pandemic

From the April 23, 2020, CNN  by Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, CNN.

Philip Kahn, 100, died April 17 of the COVID-19 flu.    He lost a twin brother in the 1918 epidemic a century earlier.He was the oldest WW II veteran in Nassau County, New York, and had been fearful of another pandemic striking during his lifetime.

His grandson Warren Zysman said:  "It was something he brought up quite frequently.  I would have conversations with him, he would say to me, 'I told you history repeats itself, 100 years is not that long of a period of time.' "

Kahn and his twin bother , Samuel, were born on December 5, 1919.  His brother died weeks later

The 1918 influenza pandemic , also called the Spanish Flu, killed an estimated 50 million people globally and 675,000 in the United States.  As of April 22, there were over 46,000 deaths in the United States and an estimated 19,000 in New York alone.

Mr. Kahn was a sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Force  during the war and acted as an engineer and co-pilot and received two Bronze Battle Stars.

After the war, he worked as an electric foreman and helped build the World Trade Center.

Before becoming ill, he lived on his own in Long Island and walked two miles a day.  he was aware of the coronavirus as he watched the news every day and in the last few days before his death, he started having the symptoms.  He took a test for it, but the results were not given until after his death.