Family, friends honor missing airman

Colbert County - Harmon Charles Hasting's fate has been a mystery since he was forced to bail out of a crippled B-17 bomber flying a mission over Germany during World War II.

Some of the aircraft's crew were accounted for, but the U.S. Army Air Force master sergeant was never found.

Hastings, a resident of the Riverton-Rose Trail area, went missing Jan. 8, 1945. A year and a day later, the U.S. military officially declared him dead.

Years passed and family members attempted to find out what happened, hoping that he may one day be located. He never was.

Hastings' nephew, Larry Turberville, said there was never any closure for his uncle's family - until Saturday.

At the tiny Hastings family cemetery atop a hill near a Riverton-Rose Trail home that has been in the family since the 1860s, a service was held for Harmon Hastings with full military honors.

Hastings was a tail gunner on the B-17. His 384th Bomb Group was assigned to USAAF Station 106 near Grafton Underwood, Northamptonshire, England, in the summer of 1943.

The unit flew support for the Normandy invasion and supported ground troops during the breakthrough at Saint-Lo in July 1944.

Hastings received a Purple Heart and an Air Medal with Four Oak Leaf Clusters during his service.

Turberville said Hastings had flown his requisite 25 missions but continued to fly.

On Jan. 8, 1945, his B-17 went down over Kyllburg, Germany. Other crewmen reported seeing Hastings bail out.

His fellow crew members were eventually accounted for. Hastings was never found.

Turberville said the military provided the family with a stone marker that he set in the family cemetery Tuesday, exactly 62 years after his uncle's disappearance.

"I thought this was the place to put it," Turberville said.

On Saturday, as family members gathered, a single training aircraft piloted by Air Force Capt. Adam Gaudinksi flew over the site at precisely 11 a.m..

Seven members of a U.S. Army Honor Guard from Fort Rucker stood at attention as the national anthem was played by Marjorie Hamm.

During her eulogy to Hastings, Susan Locker Farris said few of the people attending the memorial knew Hastings, but they honored his memory by naming children after him.

"Harmon Charles Hastings should have lived to have been a member of the greatest generation," said Farris, whose mother is a double first cousin of Hastings'.

After three members of the honor guard unfurled and painstakingly folded the flag and presented it to Michael Harmon Andrews, the honor guard gave Hastings a 21-gun salute, follow by taps. The cemetery was silent through the military ceremony.

Andrews' mother is Hastings' sole surviving sibling. She resides in California and was unable to make the trip.

"My mother talked about him all the time," Andrews said. "This was all for her."

Andrews said he would be taking the flag home to his mother. When she she passes on, he said it would be returned to the Hastings homestead at Riverton-Rose Trail.

Russ Corey can be reached at 740-5738 or russ.corey@timesdaily.com.