Lt. Colonel Otto E. Haenchen, USAF Retired, died of heart failure on Saturday, December 10, 2005 in San Antonio, Texas.
Born in 1924 at Garfield, NJ to Otto E. Haenchen, Sr. of Saddle Brook, NJ and Rose Walther Haenchen, of Garfield, NJ both deceased; he had one brother, Warren W. Haenchen of Butler, NJ, also deceased. He was a resident of Saddle River Township, NJ; graduated from Eastside High School in Patterson, NJ in 1942; enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1943 and completed Pilot Training in 1944.
Col Haenchen’s Air Force career combined training as a Communications Officer and Intelligence Officer and included flying single engine fighter (P51), cargo and passenger planes, and the largest cargo plane in the world, the six engine XC99, (1955). He was awarded the USAF’s highest aeronautical rating of Command Pilot, with over 3000 flying hours in 1962, and he retired from the Air Force in 1965. His last USAF assignment was at the Headquarters USAF Security Service in San Antonio, Texas as a Communications Intelligence Officer. In this capacity, he commanded intelligence organizations in Germany and Korea.
Following this, Col. Haenchen continued his USAF service as a civilian from 1966 to 1974, when he transferred to the National Security Agency, where he served as a Cryptologic Staff Officer, and from which he retired in 1991, after 47 years of government service.
While in Pilot Training in Waco, Texas, in 1944, he met his bride of 61 years, Annie Tondera Haenchen, of Waco, Texas, to whom he was married in 1944, immediately following his graduation and commissioning as Second Lieutenant. She devoted herself to her husband and their two sons, Col. Michael Haenchen, USAF Retired, an electrical engineer, residing in San Antonio, TX and Major M. S. “Frost” Haenchen, USA, an attorney, residing in Houston, TX and Kerrville, TX.
Survivors are his wife Annie (Tondera) Haenchen, currently residing in San Antonio, son Michael and his wife, Dena (Batista) Haenchen, their children, Jonathan and Kate; and son “Frost” and his wife, the Hon. Elizabeth (Ray) Haenchen, and their children, Joe, Tricia, Morgan and Jake. GRAVESIDE SERVICE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005 10:00 A.M. FORT SAM HOUSTON NATIONAL CEMETERY WITH FULL MILITARY HONORS In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation (where his USAF uniform is displayed), P.O. Box 1682, Ft. George G. Meade, MD 20755-9998. You are invited to sign the Guestbook at www.porterloring.com Arrangements with Porter Loring Mortuary North.