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Harry was subsequently asked by General Eric Nelson to work for him as a member of Nelson’s Bird Dogs, an elite trouble-shooting team reporting to General ‘Hap’ Arnold. This was his job for the remainder of WWII and with their own ‘fat cat’ B-24 aircraft, Harry and the Bird Dogs flew all over the world, resolving many problems experienced by airplanes newly brought into production.
Highlights of the Bird Dog’s, accomplishments included solving the runaway propeller problems with the B-26 in Tampa Florida and lubrication, engine overheating and valve burning problems in the Wright 3350 engine used in B-29 bombers, especially those in the Pacific Theatre. The Bird Dogs were asked to investigate the engine overheating problems of the 20th Air Force’s 313th Bomb Wing based on Tinian Island. The group established improved maintenance procedures, devised cooling solutions including replacing the engine’s cooling cowl flaps with a shorter, adjustable version and replacing the rocker arm assemblies on the engines with assemblies modified for better oil flow. After proving the effectiveness of these solutions, they supervised the removal, disassembly, modification, reassembly and replacement of four engines in each of the 191 B-29s then in operation.
The modification of the 764 engines (plus an unknown number of spares) was done on the base at Tinian in a little more than 3 months. Harry’s three brothers also joined the Army Air Corps. His brother Lloyd was shot down over Belgium, where a memorial to him still stands in the town of Stave.
After his retirement from the Air Force, Harry and his two surviving brothers tried their hand at mining lead and silver in Mexico. Below is an aerial shot of the Plomosa Mine in the Sierra Madre Mountains
Working the mine They survived a crash of their Beechcraft Bonanza on their short runway in Tepachi.
Harry subsequently worked with the Rainbird Sprinkler Company in Glendora, California and as a partner in Hawley Industries, a steel pole manufacturing business in South San Francisco that had an innovative design for flag poles and street light poles. One of these can be seen overlooking the parade ground of the Presidio in San Francisco. Upon retirement, Harry was able to pursue another lifelong interest: music. His love of music began in grade school where he played the mellophone in the school band. Exposure to classical music developed into a serious hobby. He gave his three children, Bob, Ann and Linda, the choice of playing any instrument (as long as it was a woodwind) and supported their musical endeavors over the years as they played, first in the California Youth Symphony and their later studies at music schools such as Juilliard, Curtis, the Paris Conservatory of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He devoted uncounted hours setting up microphones, testing audio balance and taping their many performances through the years and lent a saving hand in the formation of the fledgling Midsummer Music Festival Orchestra co-founded by his son Robert. Master tapes of the first 10 years of performances are now part of the Stanford University Music Archive.
He is survived by his wife Dorothy, his children Bob (and wife Christy), Ann and Linda and his grandchildren Deven, Deirdre and Brian.
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