On March 3, 1944, the B-24 Liberator nicknamed “Pregnant Peg” took off from its base in England, bound for a mission to bomb a German aircraft factory in Berlin.

Aboard was a 27-year-old officer from the Pennsylvania mining town of Williamstown, Dauphin County – Harry G. Hopple. He was serving as bombardier, the man responsible for dropping the ship’s bombs over the target.

This was the aircraft’s fourth mission. It was also its last.

The “Pregnant Peg” was recorded last seen just after takeoff. At some point as the aircraft crossed the North Sea with the 578th Bomber Squadron, 392nd Bomb Group, the aircraft went down.

Harry Hopple and the other nine men of the doomed bomber were never seen again. The aircraft and its crew were never recovered.

The bombing mission they went on was a failure – extreme cold and dense clouds meant that few aircraft made it to the skies over Berlin and when they did, cloud cover made it impossible to find their targets. The mission was abandoned and bombs were jettisoned harmlessly into the sea.

2nd Lt. Harry Hopple is remembered today at Williamstown’s American Legion Post 239. His portrait hangs among other images of the town’s fallen from the Second World War.

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