Memorial

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Sgt John E. Haerle was a chainman.

He volunteered for the Air Corps of the Army of the United States in San Francisco, California on 13 November 1942.

Sgt Haerle was interred at Stalag Luft I, near the town of Barth and liberated on 1 May 1945.

The flight was with a British Hudson V9169 detailed to fly from Luneburg, Germany and transport British former POW’s to Brussels, Belgium.

These were nonstop flights continuing night and day, and regarded as an emergency to remove all the POW’s out of Germany as soon as possible.

On this particular flight, there was not enough of the British POW’s available for flight, so American POW’s were boarded.

There were eight passengers on board and five crew members.

Upon landing, the airplane bounced badly and the pilot attempted re-take off, engines gunned, he climbed steeply, fell back in a tail slide, stalled, nosedived to the ground, and burst into flames upon impact. There were no survivors.

Only the day before he was killed Sgt Haerle had written his parents to tell them that he had just been liberated from a Germany prison camp.