Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: fudgums on September 26, 2009, 02:12:48 PM
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saw this on another forum.
NH WWII Pilot Gets Wish for Final B-24 Flight
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 25, 2009
Filed at 2:46 p.m. ET
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- World War II pilot Bernerd Harding feels he has finally completed his mission -- 65 years after his B-24, nicknamed Georgette, was shot down over Germany.
Harding, now 90, flew 30 minutes Friday from Laconia to Manchester aboard the Witchcraft -- the last B-24 still flying. He sat in the cockpit.
''It was fun. It was worth it. It's history,'' he said after landing.
The last time Harding flew a B-24, he was a 25-year-old first lieutenant piloting a bombing run to Bernburgh, Germany. On the way back, fighters crippled his plane, forcing him and his crew to bail out. Harding spent the rest of the war as a prisoner.
Harding said he felt his mission -- his 14th -- was incomplete without one more landing and Friday's was ''close enough,'' he said.
Harding is just back from Germany where he searched unsuccessfully for the pilot's wings he buried in a cellar after his capture.
Harding's B-24 was shot down a month after the D-Day invasion of Normandy on July 7, 1944. One member of Harding's crew was killed. The others -- including Harding -- were taken prisoner.
Harding landed in a freshly cut wheat field, barely missing a barbed wire fence. Three farmers, two with pitchforks and one with a gun, captured him and herded him into a cellar in Klein Quenstedt (klyn KWEN' -shted). Fearing reprisals from villagers for being a bomber pilot, Harding buried his pilot's wings in the cellar floor.
Two weeks ago, Harding returned to Klein Quenstedt to search for the wings with villagers' help. He didn't find his wings but a villager gave him a silver bracelet recovered from the body of a dead American airman that day. The bracelet belonged to Jack H. Glenn and is being returned to his sister in Anchorage, Alaska. She plans to send it to a museum in Texas where Glenn grew up.
Harding, who is being treated for prostate cancer, had another quest besides the wings: a final flight in a B-24.
Friday wasn't Harding's first time inside the Witchcraft. He toured the bomber about 10 years ago with his grandchildren but didn't fly in it, so this time it was a treat.
''He says, 'I'm making my last landing in light of the cancer,''' said his wife, Ruth, 84, a passenger during the ride. ''What a gift.''
:salute
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Cool story, thanks for the post!
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that's very cool :aok
plus that's my home town :rock
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Great story thanks for posting.
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Pretty awesome! :aok Thanks
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:aok :salute
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:salute
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:salute 1st Lt. Harding
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:salute Thank you SIR!
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Excellent story. Thanks for sharing it! :salute
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Very cool! :aok There is a similar story here in my hometown.
Jim Sipple, was a waist gunner on a B-24 that was shot down over Germany. Just before he bailed, he shot down a 109 with his waist gun. Jim was captured, and spent most of the remainder of the war as a POW. He wrote, and kept a journal of his story in the inside of empty cigarette packages. He still has them today.
Years later, he returned to Germany and was able to retrieve pieces of his plane that had been kept by the farmer whose field it had blown apart over. He also met, and befriended the 109 pilot he shot down before he bailed out of his plane.
Jim still lives in PA, not far from me... and he goes to the same church where I am a Scoutmaster. His son is a little older than me, and we are good friends. He has a basement full of memorabilia, the parts from his plane, and has been interviewed for a TV documentary to tell his story. It aired over memorial day weekend last year.
Next month, our Scout Troop is going to pay him a visit so he can tell the boys his story in person, they can see all of his war memorabilia, and they can meet a real WW2 veteran.
Here is the account of his story, written by him: http://www.461st.org/Kriegsgefangenen/james_e_sipple.htm
The missing air crew report (obviously not the original) http://www.461st.org/PDFs/MACR%207113.pdf
Jim also has cancer, and has chosen not to seek treatment for it. For now, he is not in pain, and is living his life normally. But, the doctors arent giving him much time.
Thanks for posting the story of Bernerd Harding fudgums... and I hope you guys like Jim's story too. I will let you all know how our visit goes when we get back.
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:salute