Glashoff's Crew

LT Glashoff's Crew

F/O Harry Lovely, stands second from right, and LT Howard Glashoff stands far left.  SGT Kenneth L. Day is front row, fourth from the left.

Other crews reported seeing #646 leaving formation with one engine. Later, a radio call for fighter support was heard, but no further contact was made. The KU report lists Howard Glashoff as KIA, and the others POW. LT Glashoff was buried at the Soldiers Cemetary Haus Spital near Muenster, GR. The destruction of the aircraft was credited to the 22nd Flak Division. (MACR 10405).

Kenneth L. Day did not fly with the crew.  He survived the war and believed that the Glashoff crew was KIA throughout his life following the war.  He passed away in 1991.

The Glashoff crew was interred at the Stalag Luft I, near the town of Barth, and liberated on May 1, 1945. The German guards abandoned the camp to escape the approaching Red Army. Conditions at the camp were very bleak, and many prisoners died from their weakened condition. Such may have been the case with SGT Haerle, who died on the 20th. At the end of the war Stalag Luft I held 1,400 British and 7,700 American prisoners. During May 13th and 14th, the prisoners were evacuated on B17s, and flew out 30 at a time. Two thousand five hundres were flown out the first day, and 6,500 the next.

- Richard Lovely (Son of Harry Lovely)

SGT John Haerle was being repatriated at the end of the war on May 18th 1945. An RAF Lockheed Hudson III of 161 Squadron was at Luneburg to carry SGT Haerle and 12 other US POWs to the UK. Unfortunately, the aircraft crash landed at Evere, Belgium, and burst into flames. All aboard the aircraft were killed. He is buried at Neupre, Belgium.

-- Regis Decobeck, Waterloo, Belgium

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