Karl's War
Even the official version, albeit light on details, provides tantalizing clues
Jay Reid’s cousin, Karl Harr, who would go on to serve as President Dwight Eisenhower’s Special Assistant for Operations Coordination from 1958-1961, enlisted in the Army on May 25, 1942.
He had just completed his sophomore year at Princeton.
Despite two years of Ivy League education under his belt, the Army listed Karl as an unskilled manufacturer of automobiles. We’ll put a pin in this curious choice for now, but keep it in mind as the story unfolds.
Karl was given the rank of Sergeant, assigned to Field Artillery, and placed in the reserves.
A star at Princeton
It is obvious from his press clippings why the Army, and perhaps the intelligence community more broadly, would take note of Karl Harr.
Although Karl was technically a member of the class of ‘44, he was placed on an accelerated track, likely in connection with his Army commitments.
Karl graduated magna cum laude from Princeton just a few months after his above mention in The New York Times in February 1943.
His graduation merited even more public praise.
The article details the awards Karl won at Princeton.
Incidentally, in Karl’s final season at Princeton, the Tigers went 3-5-1 on the gridiron. Their best result was a 6-6 tie at #8 Penn, played in front of 35,000 fans at the famed Franklin Field.
Princeton split a couple of games against the service academies that year, defeating Navy 10-0, but losing to Army 7-40. Both games were played at Yankee Stadium and generated decent buzz for the day. Around 25,000 people were in attendance for the early season tilt against the Midshipmen, while 40,000 came to see the season finale against the Cadets.
Karl, even in his early twenties, was many things: elite student, skilled football player, and officer candidate among them.
One thing he does not appear to have been was an unskilled manufacturer of automobiles.
Africa? When?
According to biographic notes at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Karl joined the active-duty U.S. Army right after graduation.
In the army, he served as a Special Intelligence Officer in the China-Burma-India (CBI) and Southwest Pacific theaters.
Due to a lack of documentary material, the details of Karl’s wartime experience remain, in large part, a mystery.
It is likely that Karl’s records were impacted by the 1973 fire at the National Archives building in St. Louis.
On July 12, 1973, a fire broke out in the National Personnel Records Center at 9700 Page Avenue in St. Louis, MO. It destroyed approximately 16–18 million Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs).
At the time, the General Services Administration—then the National Archives’ parent organization—owned the building.
In the scramble to put out the fire, first responders doused the building. The main fire took four days to control. Hotspots lasted about a month.
The veterans’ records most affected were of U.S. Army, Army Air Force, and Air Force personnel.
The fire destroyed more than three-quarters of these documents.
At this point, it is unknown whether any of his records survived the fire. If some did, I have not been able to locate them.
That leaves just two verified documents to shed light on Karl’s military experience.
The first is an air transport command passenger list for a flight that left Casablanca, stopped in Azores (Portugal), then continued on to LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
This document is especially curious because it features mismatched dates.
The typed departure date at the top is June 23, 1943. However, stamped three times (two on top, somewhat faded, and once on the bottom, below the captain’s signature) are departure and arrival dates in 1944. They are June 23 and 24, respectively.
While it is possible that the original typed manifest was incorrectly dated as the year prior, the original typed date is the only one of the four that we can assert with confidence is original.
The stamps could have been added at any later date.
So, I am inclined to believe that the flight departed Casablanca on June 23, 1943 and arrived in New York the following day.
That would mean that Karl travelled to North Africa very soon after The Times article noting his graduation in late May 1943.
Otherwise, if the correct flight year is 1944, that would mean Karl was in Africa when he was supposedly in the CBI and Southwest Pacific theaters.
Another mystery is what Karl might have been doing in North Africa. While it is possible that Casablanca was merely where he boarded the plane for the U.S. after having been elsewhere, it is still unclear where else he might have been, and why.
Survivor
Three months after World War II ended, apparently on his way home from Asia, Karl Harr was a passenger on a military transport plane that ran out of fuel and crashed in the Pacific Ocean on November 3, 1944.
Out of 26 people on board AL640, a Consolidated LB-30 Liberator, only 8 survived. Karl was one of them. He emerged from the wreckage with only lacerations.
Ironically, the eight survivors were rescued at sea by the escort carrier Casablanca.
Aviation Safety Network provides the following summary of what happened:
Consolidated LB-30 Liberator (RAF Serial AL640). Built for the RAF against a British Purchasing Commission order (hence the RAF serial; aircraft on "lend lease" had USAAF Serials THEN RAF serials). Requisitioned before delivery to the RAF and converted to a Consolidated LB-30/C-87 Liberator Express, still retaining the original RAF serial as AL640, assigned to the 1504th AAF Base Unit, Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, crashed into the Pacific Ocean and sank 3 November 1945.
The aircraft was four hours out of Hawaii en-route to Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, California, when it ran out of fuel and ditched at 07:40 hrs., 500 miles (800 km) North East of Honolulu at approximately 149'50" West/25'25"N. Eighteen of the persons on board were killed and eight survived on life rafts to be rescued by surface vessels. Seven ships, including aircraft carriers, were involved in the search.
One of the survivors, John R. Patrick, was convicted at a court martial of involuntary manslaughter for failing to "determine positively" whether the plane had been re-fueled before takeoff.
Two months after the crash, on February 10, 1946, Karl was discharged from the Army and returned to civilian life in New Jersey.