Harned reflects on life of military, aviation

Harold “Tiny” Harned began his life in aviation when he was 17.

Douglas Aviation had airplane manufacturing facilities in Santa Monica, Calif., and in 1942 the Atchison, Kan., native and longtime Newton resident was barely out of high school when he was crafting the wings of bombers such as the Douglas A20 “Havoc.”

“I was only there for six months, but I was building planes that were used in North Africa and Italy,” Harned said at Nelson Manor Friday while looking through a book filled with memorabilia from his life.

His three-ring booklet preserved photos of the Douglass C47 Skytrain, the Dauntless Dive Bomber and several others all partially built by the now 87-year-old. Harned served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was never sent into theater, but worked as a mechanic and flight engineer on some of the most iconic planes of the 20th century. During his military career, he maintained planes and trained pilots on mid-flight repair techniques for the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-29 Bomber.

But even soldiers who don't see combat still see danger. Harned remembers an accident in 1944 while landing at the end of a training exercise with the crew of a B-24 Bomber. The private first class was in Alabama training in a B-17 school. They recruited several people to
train and then teach pilots how to repair the B-24s.

Harned said on their fourth day of exercises, the primary landing gear on his plane would not lower past 90 degrees. A soldier in front of him diagnosed the problem, and Harned went to the rear bomb bay doors and found the area enveloped in smoke. On final approach, he recalled the pilot did not even wait for the runway, landing the plane in the dirt.

“I realized what was happening, so I turned around to the bulkhead, and there wasn’t anything to tie me down,” Harned said. “It’s surprising how high you can bounce. I sat down with back to bulkhead and when we crashed I bounced up in the air. After that it was 10 days of lying around to take care of bruises.”

The youngest of 13 children, Harned speaks with a fond earnestness about his brothers and sisters. Only eight of the 13 kids survived childhood. His brothers Leo and Art both fought in World War II, and it was during a visit with his oldest sister and her family in Enid, Okla., that Harned saw Uncle Sam pointing at him.

"I was walking past the courthouse in Enid, and there was a sign in the window. He was pointing right at me," he said. "I turned, walked in and said 'I'm ready to go.' And they said, 'Well, you can't do that. You have to wait until the next bunch of draftees go.' I asked how
long that was going to be, and she said 'Monday.' I'd already been hit by my draft letter. I figured I'd better go back home and tell people goodbye."

He was originally sent to Fort Sill, Okla., for field artillery training. To this day, Harned still holds the transfer/transport order dated April 21, 1943. From day one Harned showed tenacity.

“I’d been in the Boy Scouts so I had a little background,” he said. “The guy that was supposed to be in charge didn’t show up, so I marched the guys out.”

Before he was asked to take the aviation test, Harned was sent to Sheppard Field, Texas, to be trained on artillery for outer perimeter defense.

“For three months they really gave us an education,” he said. “We carried 60 pounds of G.I. soap in our pack and we would run about five miles a day. I mean, we were the only ones except for the Marines that had the rifles.”

He was eventually sent to Amarillo, Texas, to begin aviation training on the B-17. It was there on Randolph Field that Harned met his wife of 63 years.

“It seemed like every time I put in to go to battle, they put me into another school, which turned out to be … real well,” he laughed.

World War II prepared Harned for a career in aviation. He worked for Johnson Aviation, helped set up a flight school in Waterloo, dusted crops in Walla Walla, Wash., and repaired and flew planes for the Maytag Corp. after serving his country.

Maytag offered Harned the job in 1953 after he repaired its corporate plane during a trip to Kansas City where he was worked as an airport engineer. Maytag offered the former soldier $100 a week for his services. He worked for the Newton washer and dryer manufacturer for more than 20 years and remembers a landing gear incident particularly reminiscent of his time working with World War II bombers.

At the former Newton airport at Fourth Avenue and East 19th Street in 1965, Harned landed the Maytag aircraft without the left-side landing gear. The crash is still documented in photographs in the veteran’s records. After escaping the incapacitated plane, Harned noticed a man off the runway with a tripod shooting the series of photos. It was Fred Maytag, Harned said with a smile.

As well as working for Newton Winpower, Harned was elected mayor of Lambs Grove shortly after purchasing a home in the Newton suburb in the 1950s. At the time, the roads in Lambs Grove were all dirt.

Harned spearheaded the full paving of the city’s streets and earned it the distinction of the first incorporated municipality in Iowa to completely pave its roadways.

Now living at Nelson Manor, Harned still looks to his days in aviation with a spark of thrill. Perched over photos of his wife, now gone, and the newer generations of his family, a model of a deep blue toned single-engine plane sits on a cabinet.

NDN Reporter Mike Mendenhall can be reached at (641) 792-3121 ext 422
or at mmendenhall@newtondailynews.com