Paul Maurice Harper was born Sept. 14, 1922 to Charles James and Alice Kel Dalton Harper. He died Dec. 17, 1944 and is buried in Malvern Cemetery, Malvern, IA.
Flight Officer Harper served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Corps and died as the result of a fatal airplane accident near Madera, CA.
Howard “Howie” Heideman of Omaha, NE wrote in part, "Paul's aircraft and his remains were found and returned to the base. I offered to escort Paul, in his casket, back to his parents' home. It seemed like a long, long train ride to his Iowa home. I had met Paul's mother a couple of times when she visited Paul when we were stationed in California. But this meeting was different. Meeting his parents, his sisters, and other relatives was difficult; but the most difficult was when I bent down on one knee to present Paul's grieving mother with the triangularly-folded American flag that had been lifted from atop Paul's coffin. The image of that moment lingers with me to this day. It may never go away.”
Source: ancestry.com
