Robert H. Harmer Jr.

Rank: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces

Serial: O-799173

Unit: 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group

Entered service from: New Jersey

Died: December 20, 1943

Buried at: Harleigh Cemetery, Haddon Avenue, Camden, New Jersey

Awards: Purple Heart

Second Lieutenant Robert H. Harmer Jr. was born on September 23, 1923, in Pennsylvania, the son of Robert and Mabel Harmer. His father was an insurance broker in Camden, New Jersey. Sometime in the late 1920s the Harmer family—which included sisters Myra, Roberta, and Betty, born in 1929—moved from Collingswood to 241 West Pine Street in Audubon, New Jersey, where Robert Harmer grew up and attended school. He was a 1941 graduate of Audubon High School. He attended the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia before entering the Army in June of 1942.

Robert Harmer Jr. qualified for flight duty and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in March of 1943. He went overseas in July 1943, assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, flying P-38 Lightning fighters from North Africa and Italy.

The history of the 1st Fighter Group recorded the circumstances of his death:

Escorted the Forts to Athens where they really blasted the hell out of Eleusis Airdrome. Too bad there were not more fighters on the field. Coming home was not so good. The weather closed in on some and we have 15 unreported. Four ships were lost and three pilots. The fourth one is in the hospital in a very serious condition.

Returning from an escort mission to Greece, Lts. Harmer, Lipowicz, and F/P Charles Brown, all of the 94th, crashed into the hills after the weather had closed in on them. The 27th lost Francis Mackle in the same manner.

Robert Harmer Jr. was reported killed in Italy on December 20, 1943. His death was reported in the evening edition of the Camden Courier-Post on January 25, 1944. After the war he was brought home, and he rests at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey.