The Semmel Family Forest lost its oldest surviving branch when Leonard Fried died on March 3, 2015 at Laguna Woods, CA. He was just three months short of his 102nd birthday. Leonard, the son of Helen (nee Besser) and Abraham Fried, and the brother of Anne and Irving, was a man of many talents and achievements.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. on June 14, 1913, Leonard was a young boy when he started working with his father in their commission bakery business. They rose at dawn daily to load their truck with freshly baked goods from a bakery for distribution to the neighborhood grocery stores where they were to be sold to local customers. They returned home when the rest of the world was awakening, and Leonard had a short nap before going off to school. He graduated from Boys High School in Brooklyn and attended City College of New York (CCNY) as a part-time student, earning a B.S. in Psychology and Sociology in 1937.

At the same time, Leonard developed his life-long love of music. He learned to play the piano by mimicking his sister's lessons and imitating her practice. He discovered his beautiful, rich baritone voice and began training for a career as an opera singer. He sang with the renowned Schola Cantorum, and he studied with well-known teachers, including Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill, baritones who had starred at the Metropolitan Opera. He supported himself by entertaining in hotels in the so-called "Borscht Belt" in the Catskill Mountains and by club dates and singing at weddings.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941, Leonard enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to Camp Upton, N.Y. for induction. He arrived as Irving Berlin was making plans to develop a musical revue to be presented for servicemen by servicemen, just as he had done during World War I. However, this version, named This Is The Army (TITA), was to become a much more ambitious undertaking. Leonard participated in its development and sang in the chorus until the show was disbanded at the end of the war, and he maintained a relationship with Irving Berlin for many years.

TITA, the only racially integrated unit in the US Army at the time, was cast mainly by enlisted men. It opened on Broadway on July 4, 1943 and ran through September 26th to much acclaim. Eleanor Roosevelt was so impressed that she helped arrange a command performance at the White House. The cast met FDR, who shook hands with each of the 359 members of the company, including Leonard!

The film rights for TITA were sold, and a national tour was organized so that the show could be performed in various cities as the company made its way to Hollywood. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Leonard attended a party for servicemen where he met and fell in love with June Belle. From Hollywood, Leonard sent her letter proposing marriage. On his way back to the East coast, Leonard returned to Pittsburgh for their wedding, held on March 2, 1943. Leonard and June's happy union endured until her death in 2014.

On October 22, 1943 TITA embarked from New York on what would become a worldwide tour. The show arrived in a blacked-out Liverpool on November 4th and performed amid blackouts and air raids there, as well as in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and in Ireland. The stay in the British Isles lasted through the end of February 1944.

In March, TITA went to Algiers for a two-week stay before moving on to Naples, Italy, which was then virtually under siege. The opening performance in the Opera House on April 1st was punctuated by two air raids. In nearby Santa Maria, the closest the show got to the Front, there was a three-hour air raid and the show's finale was performed by flashlight. Then, on June 5th, Rome was liberated by the Fifth Army and on the 6th, the company heard about D-Day. TITA opened at the Rome Opera House on June 15th. The show was performed there for many audiences, military and civilian for a month, moving on to Foggia and Bari during July. D-Day marked the beginning of the end of the war in Europe, but military operations were continuing elsewhere and TITA moved on.

Leaving Italy by ship in late July, This Is The Army arrived in Alexandria, Egypt on August 3rd. After a five- hour trip through the desert, seeing sights along the Nile, the show reached Cairo. Along with the performances presented to soldiers and civilians, a special show was performed for King Farouk I. It closed at the Cairo Opera House on August 31st. During the stay in Egypt, a furlough allowed a visit to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

During most of September and October 1944, TITA traveled by ship in the Persian Gulf area. Escorted by a convoy, they traversed the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates River, reaching Khormaksar where they presented a show on September 20th. Traveling by train, performances were staged in Hamadan, Ahwaz and Arak in Iran. Five shows were presented during a five-night stay in Teheran.

With the war in Europe virtually over, the focus shifted to the Pacific Theatre of Operations and TITA headed there via India and Australia. A convoy of four ships and two escorts accompanied the cast of TITA to Bombay, India, where they arrived on November 9 and encamped until November 30th. They then boarded a troopship heading for Sydney, performing there on December 18th, in Brisbane on Christmas Day, and in other Australian venues.

The show then travelled in the South Pacific for the next eight months. In Oro Bay, New Guinea, it entertained 15,000 soldiers, its largest audience, and gave eight performances in a single day on eight different stages in other locations there during February. The cast then performed in the Philippines (Leyte, Mindanao, Mindoro, Manila and Batangas). By July, they were in Saipan. They spent August in Saipan, Guam, and the Mariana Islands; September in Iwo Jima, Okinawa; October in





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