Lieutenant Roy Harms
A Pilot from Grafton shot down during World War Two will return home for burial on Saturday. Roy Harms was 26 years old when he was killed on August 1st, 1943 in the attack on the Ploesti oil fields of Romania. Lieutenant Harms was piloting a B-24 bomber with eight crew members on board with him when enemy forces shot the plane down. His remains couldn’t be identified immediately, and so his first resting ground was as an unknown in a cemetery in Romania. Remaining unidentified, he was moved along with more than 80 others to an American Cemetery in Belgium.
Five years ago those soldiers were removed and taken to a lab at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska where Harms’ remains were identified on August 2nd last year, 79 years almost to-the-day after his passing.
Now Harms will be remembered in his home town with a procession and burial ceremony beginning at 11:15 on Saturday. People are being encouraged to line North Street in Grafton from 12th Avenue to 3rd Avenue to pay silent respect as Lieutenant Harms is taken to his final resting place at Woodlawn Cemetery, where he’ll be buried with full military honors.
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