CONCORD, N.H. — Sixty-five years ago, 1st Lt. Bernerd Harding huddled in a cellar with a few other airmen captured by German farmers and buried his pilot’s wings, fearful he’d be beaten or shot as an American bomber pilot.
Now, at age 90, Harding wants his wings back. He’s headed to Germany today and hopes — with the help of a German doctor — to find the farm house cellar and dig up the 3-inch-long metal wings that he had proudly pinned to his shirt. The house was in rural Klein Quenstedt (pronounced klyn KWEN’-shted), Germany, southwest of Berlin, he said.
“I know exactly where the wings are. They’re not very deep. I won’t need a shovel,” he said in a firm, clear voice during a telephone interview from his Milford, N.H., home.
A month after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, Harding was a 25-year-old B-24 pilot flying his 14th mission when he was shot down.
Harding, a member of the 8th Air Force’s 492nd Bomb Group, was leading nine other B-24s in the 859th squadron on a daylight mission to bomb an aircraft manufacturing plant in Bernburgh on July 7, 1944.
He had just dropped his bombload when the support planes that kept German fighters at bay were diverted to protect another squadron. Shortly afterward, German fighters crippled his plane, and Harding ordered his crew to parachute.
“Our inboard engines were on fire. We lost every control. I gave the order for everyone to bail out. I bailed out last,” he said.
All 10 planes in his squadron, carrying about 100 crewmen and pilots, were shot down, he recalled. At least half died, he said. Of the 12 men aboard his plane, only one died that day, shot in the head by his German captors, Harding found out later. The others were all captured and survived the war but have since died.
Harding landed in a wheat field. Three farmers captured him and herded him into the cellar. They held him until German army officers could take charge. Two other airmen who had been shot down were already being held when Harding arrived. He dug a hole and buried his wings.
He spent 10 months in the POW camp in Barth before being freed by Russian troops.
As the years passed, Harding didn’t think much about his wings.
Then last year, he attended services at Arlington National Cemetery for six airmen whose remains had only recently been discovered with the help of German villagers. Harding began to think Klein Quenstedt residents might help him recover his wings and close a chapter in his life.
A friend of Harding’s found Klein Quenstedt resident Dr. Ulrich Heucke online and e-mailed Heucke describing Harding’s quest and asked for help. Heucke, 41, became intrigued and wrote back. He said chances of Harding finding the pin are slim.
“We will just go around. It is the last hope to find the place,” he said.
