On January 2, 1942, Rosenthal enlisted in the
United States Army as an
aviation cadet. In September 1942, he graduated from the Air Corps Advanced Flying School at
Moody Field, near
Valdosta,
Georgia, earning his
wings and a commission as a
second lieutenant. In September 1943, he completed
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress combat crew training at
Dyersburg Army Air Base near
Halls,
Tennessee. He and his crew were immediately shipped overseas and joined the
418th Bombardment Squadron,
100th Bombardment Group, stationed at
RAF Thorpe Abbotts in England. On the October 10, 1943, mission over
Münster,
Germany, only the third mission for Rosenthal's crew with the 100th Bombardment Group, the B-17F s/n 42-6087, nicknamed
Royal Flush, was the only plane out of 13 from the group that reached Münster to return to base.
Royal Flush landed back in England with two
engines dead, the
intercom and the
oxygen system non-functional, and with a large ragged hole in the right wing. Later the ground crews found an unexploded cannon shell in one of
Royal Flush's wing tanks. Rosenthal would receive his first
Silver Star for this mission. On March 8, 1944, Rosenthal's crew, nicknamed ''Rosie's Riveters'', completed their 25-mission combat tour, although the B-17F (s/n 42-30758) that they usually flew bearing the same name was shot down while being flown by a different crew during the February 4, 1944, mission to
Frankfurt, Germany. The crew returned to the United States, but Rosenthal extended his tour, eventually flying a total of 52 missions. In May 1944, he took command of the
350th Bombardment Squadron. On September 10, 1944, Rosenthal's B-17G
Terrible Termite (s/n 42-97770), flying on a mission to bomb
Nuremberg, was hit by flak and crash-landed around
Reims in
German-occupied France. Along with all the officers on his plane he was seriously injured. Suffering from a broken arm and nose, he was pulled from the cockpit unconscious by
Free French, flown back to England, and woke up at a hospital in Oxford. Rosenthal would receive his second Silver Star after this mission. He returned to duty as soon as he had healed. Rosenthal was assigned to a desk job at wing headquarters, but he managed to return to the 100th Bomb Group and take command of his old squadron, the 418th. On his last combat mission on February 3, 1945, Rosenthal, commanding the 418th, was part of a 2,500-plane
raid against Berlin. His B-17G (s/n 44-8379), the lead bomber, suffered a direct flak hit which killed two of his crew. Although his plane was in flames, he continued to the target to drop his
payload, then stayed with the plane until after the rest of the crew had bailed out, just before it exploded at an altitude of only about . He broke his arm upon landing and was confronted at gunpoint by
Red Army soldiers. Rosenthal identified himself as an American by yelling
amerikansky! (), which worked, as the
Soviets understood he was an ally and helped him again return to duty. Rosenthal would earn the
Distinguished Service Cross for this mission. Among the buildings hit in the raid was the
"People's Court", killing the court's president, notorious "hanging judge"
Roland Freisler. Freisler was an attendee of the
Wannsee Conference, which formalized plans for the "
Final Solution to the
Jewish question". After the war, Rosenthal served as an assistant to the
U.S. prosecutor at the
Nuremberg trials, where he interrogated the former head of the German Air Force,
Hermann Göring and
Wilhelm Keitel, former head of the German Armed Forces High Command
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). He was honorably discharged from the Army on November 30, 1945. ==Awards and decorations==