Blog: Dermot Cole
WWII casualty has sister in Anchorage
Published Saturday, September 19, 2009
The silver bracelet Bernie Harding received on his trip to Germany belonged to a World War II soldier who died in 1944. It turns out that the fallen serviceman has an 87-year-old sister in---of all places-- Anchorage.
The unusual story of Harding's search for his pilot's wings in Germany has been full of unexpected twists.
Harding, who lives in New Hampshire, is the 90-year-old stepfather of Fairbanks insuranceman Peter Kelley.
I have been out of the country for the past few weeks, but had heard from Kelley that international news coverage about the bracelet quickly led to the finding of the relative in Anchorage.
Kelley plans to deliver the bracelet to her as soon as he can.
Anchorage Associated Press writer Dan Joling has a story on this topic today, revealing new details about Jack Harold Glenn, who died in 1944.
His family learned of his death later that summer, informed that his parachute did not open when the plane was shot down.
Joling wrote:
"The silver bracelet Glenn was wearing was given to a 16-year-old boy who helped retrieve his body. He held onto the bracelet ever since, a remembrance of the fallen American airman. Sixty-five years later, the bracelet is returning to Glenn's sister in Alaska thanks to an enterprising World War II veteran who uncovered the relic on a recent trip to the German village.
Helen Glenn Foreman of Anchorage says she will receive her brother's bracelet in a week or so and plans to send it to a museum in Matagorda County, Texas, where Glenn grew up.
"Anything that's gone to the museum may inspire or make people grateful or add to history," Helen Glenn Foreman said Wednesday. "I think we're all better people if we know and appreciate history."
Foreman heard of the bracelet for the first time last week from family and friends of 90-year-old Bernerd Harding, a New Hampshire man who traveled this month to Klein Quenstedt, Germany, a village southwest of Berlin, on a quest to find his pilot's wings.
His B-24 bomber was shot down the same day as Glenn's. Harding bailed out and was captured and held in a farmhouse. Fearing he'd be beaten or shot because he was a pilot, Harding dug a shallow hole in the dirt basement and buried his wings. He didn't find the wings on the trip but he was handed the bracelet by Heinz Kruse.
On July 7, 1944, Kruse was planting potatoes in a field owned by his father when an American B-24 bomber appeared overhead. German fighters were close behind, raking the bomber with machine gun fire.
"It broke apart in the air, and fell to the ground," Kruse said.
Kruse, then 16, rushed home. At midday, an adult told him to help a schoolmate driving a horse-pulled wagon retrieve the body of a dead American airman that had landed in a field outside the town.
As they loaded the body onto the cart, the boys noticed the soldier was wearing the silver bracelet.
They presented the bracelet to the mayor, who wrote down the name, Jack H. Glenn, and gave the bracelet back to Kruse.
"He said, 'You can keep it as a remembrance,'" Kruse said.
For 65 years, that's what Kruse did.
To read the full story by Joling, go to http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gZIXjSLsOlVFXbGj9Ou1GAhdDfDwD9AQGSG02
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