Profile
Pfc. Leif Michael De Kriuiff
(1921–2015)
Leif M. De Kruiff was born in Copenhagen in 1921. The family emigrated to the United States in 1933. He enlisted in the USAAF in October 1942, still a Danish national. He was one of more than 30,000 Danish-Americans mobilised in the U.S. armed forces.
Leif Michael De Kruiff was born Ugo Leif Michael Lungo Jensen in Copenhagen on 1 March 1921, to Emilie Ingeborg Jensen.[1]
In January 1925, De Kruiff’s mother and younger sister, Karen Elisabeth, travelled to New York to work.[2] Meanwhile De Kruiff lived with his maternal grandparents in Gentofte outside Copenhagen.[4] De Kruiff’s mother met and married the Danish bank clerk Gustav Sophus Kjær in Bronx, New York, on 28 November 1926.[5] In June 1927, the couple returned to Denmark on-board the SS Oscar II.
In November 1932, the mother divorced and married the Dutch pastry cook, and her brother-in-law, Bertus De Kruiff.[5] Two months later, he moved to the United States,[6] and De Kruiff and his mother followed in March 1933.[7]
He graduated from the Bayside High School (Class of June 1941)[8] and was employed as a bookkeeper by Johnson & Falkner, Inc.[9]
De Kruiff enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force on 27 October 1942 (32543813).[10] There is no further information on his service other than that he was admitted twice to the hospital (May and December 1944).[11]
After the war, he returned to New York and worked for the U.S. Customs Service. He died in 2015.[12]
Endnotes
[1] DNA: Parish register, Frederiks Sogn.
[2] Ancestry: New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957.
[3] DNA: 1925 Census of Denmark.
[4] Ancestry: New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937.
[5] DNA: Parish register, Gentofte Sogn.
[6] Ancestry: Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962.
[7] Ancestry: Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962.
[8] Ancestry: U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999.
[9] Ancestry: U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947.
[10] Ancestry: U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946.
[11] Ancestry: U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954.
[12] Leif M. DeKruiff | 1921 - 2015 | Obituary, https://www.thompsonfuneralhomelebanon.com/obituary/4738683 (accessed on 17 January 2021).