Flight plan fulfilled for Milford WWII vet

Bernerd Harding sat just behind the pilots at the controls of the B-24 Liberator.

With the four engines roaring and a persistent wind whipping through the World War II heavy bomber, Harding watched the pilots at work. He's 90 now, but he used to be one of them.

Sixty-five years after he was shot down over Berlin while piloting a B-24 on his 14th mission, Harding took to the skies once again yesterday.

The Milford man was given a rare opportunity to fly in the last fully restored B-24J Liberator in the world. It was the first time he'd flown in a B-24 since July 7, 1944 -- the day German fighters shot down him and 11 others he was carrying.

The minute he heard the engines fire up yesterday, Harding began to relive a chapter in his life that he's never been able to close.

"I found myself waiting for the flares to go up to take off. That was standard procedure," he said.

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> Click here to view photos from the Wings of Freedom Tour stop in New Hampshire.

Harding flew with the National Wings of Freedom tour from Laconia Airport in Gilford to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

The Wings of Freedom tour is provided through the Collings Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization. The tour travels the country as a flying tribute to those who once flew the B-17, B-24 and the P-51. The World War II aircraft will be on display for the public at the New Hampshire Aviation Museum next to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport until noon Monday.

Harding's flight yesterday came just a few weeks after he had traveled to Germany in hopes of digging up his metal pilot wings pin that he had buried in the cellar of a farmhouse where he was held captive immediately after he was shot down.

He never found the wings, but a German man handed him a silver bracelet that he had recovered from the body of an American airman when he was 16. The bracelet carried the name Jack H. Glenn, and the man wanted Harding to have it.

Harding was determined to have the bracelet returned to the airman's family members, if he could find them. Glenn's sister was eventually found in Anchorage, Alaska. Harding's stepson, Peter Kelley, who helped arrange the trip to Germany to search for the wings, lives in Fairbanks and plans to deliver the bracelet to her.

For Harding, it didn't matter that he never found the wings. At least the bracelet will be returned. "So it was a successful mission anyways," he said.

Touched by his story, the Wings of Freedom crew gave Harding a replica of the wings during yesterday's flight. He said they weren't exactly the same, but they were close enough, and he was pleased to have them. He kept them safe in his pocket.

Click on the video below to watch the flight and Harding's recollections.

Members of Harding's family accompanied him on yesterday's flight, including his wife, Ruth, 84. He sat near the cockpit, she sat in the rear. As the war memories flooded back for Harding, his wife of 20 years wondered what it must have been like for those who lived it.

"I just thought of all those young men," she said.

Her husband knows all too well what it was like.

When the 10 planes in his squadron were shot down on that day in July 1944, Harding and his crew had to bail out after the engines caught fire and they lost the controls. He was the last one to parachute out and landed in an open field.

Harding -- a first lieutenant in the 8th Air Force's 492nd Bomb Group -- recalled the moment when three German farmers approached him armed with pitchforks and a rifle.

"I didn't even get my parachute off by the time the farmers were around me," he said. "I had a .45-caliber pistol, but I was so afraid if they took that they might use it on me, but they didn't." The farmers hauled him to the cellar of a farmhouse where two other airmen were being held captive. German soldiers arrived soon after and brought him to a POW camp, where he remained for 10 months.

Harding later learned that of the 102 men in his squadron, 57 were killed.

While in the cellar, Harding said he thought he better bury his wings so that the Germans wouldn't know he was the man piloting the bomber.

When he returned to the Germany this month, Harding faced a very different reception.

"The German people just welcomed us with open arms," he said.

Harding recalled one older man who approached him and asked whether he could give him a hug.

"I said, 'You may.'" Then Harding told him, "I'm glad we're both on the same side now."

Yesterday's flight triggered many memories, and while some were painful, Harding was glad he had climbed aboard.

"Hey, it was fun. It was worth it. That's history there," he said.