Harvey Jenning Purkey, Jr., was born in Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on September 5, 1922, to Harvey and Sybil (Ely) Purkey. Harvey, Jr., was the older brother by two years to Gerald. Harvey, Sr., was a U. S. Army veteran of World War I.

The 1930 Census report shows the family of four living in Roscommon, Roscommon County, Michigan, where the father is a foreman of a road construction crew. By 1940, the family moved to Flint, Genesee County, Michigan. The father is working in the maintenance department for the City of Flint and the mother is a seamstress for a department store. Harvey is 17 years old and is working as a supply clerk for a drafting room.

Harvey, Jr., graduated from Central High School in Flint in 1939. The 1939 Central High School “Prospectus” yearbook shows that Harvey, Jr., participated in cross country, track, and intra-mural badminton.

On June 30, 1942, Harvey Jenning Purkey, Jr., completed his World War II draft registration card in Flint. His registration card states he is 19 years old and is employed at the A.C. Spark Plug Co. in Flint. It states he is 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighs 155 pounds, and has a light complexion with brown hair and brown eyes. It also states he has an “appendix scar.” He lists his mother, Mrs. Sybil Purkey, as his next of kin.

On September 30, 1942, Harvey enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Corps in Detroit, Michigan, as a private (PVT), service #16113858. His enlistment record shows he resides in Genesee County, Michigan; is single; and has completed four years of high school. His civil occupation is listed as “semi-skilled filers, grinders, buffers and polishers (metal).”

PVT Purkey, Jr., received his basic training that included military disciplines and courtesy; close order drills; first aid and protection against diseases; physical conditioning; defense guard enemy attack; and care and use of weapons. Basic training was necessary for discipline, uniformity, unity and classification.

After completion of his basic and flight training, PVT Purkey, Jr., attended additional training at mechanic/engineer school and then aerial gunnery school at the Army gunnery school.

PVT Purkey, Jr., was promoted to a technical sergeant (T/SGT) and earned his gunner’s wings. He was assigned to the heavy bomber crew of pilot 1LT Dean C. Allen as the engineer/top turret gunner.

T/SGT Purkey, Jr., with the crew of 1LT Dean C. Allen, who flew the B-17G bomber, Serial #42-97946, named “Hard To Get,” deployed to England and arrived June 5, 1944. The crew was assigned to the 368th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, which was stationed at RAF Thurleigh (Station #111), north of Bedford, Bedfordshire, England.

During World War II, the 306th Bombardment Group’s operations were primarily dropping bombs against strategic targets, i.e. locomotive works, railroad yards, submarine pens, shipbuilding yards, ball-bearing works, oil plants, marshaling yards, foundries, and chemical plants. The 368th Bombardment Squadron was one of the first units to deploy to the European Theater of Operations to participate in the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany.

On August 26, 1944, T/SGT Purkey, Jr., was the top turret gunner aboard aircraft “Hard To Get” with eight other crew members. They were on a bombing mission to bomb the oil synthetic refineries at Gelsenkirchen, Germany, and left RAF Thurleigh at 1234 hours.

They were flying in formation and had no trouble on the route in; however, while on the bomb run, the “Hard To Get” aircraft was hit by flak. The first burst hit the left wing and knocked off most of the other section. A second burst struck the bomb bay and started a fire. The third burst hit in the waist section of the plane, and a fire started. The fourth burst hit the right wing and knocked out numbers three and four engines. This happened all rapidly, and the pilot gave the order to bail out near Budberg, Germany, as the co-pilot was at the controls.

Three crew members were unable to bail out and were killed in action (KIA) when the plane crashed. One other crew member was shot in the head while descending in his parachute, or after reaching the ground; the Nazis claimed he was hit in the head by flak. The five other crew members, which included T/SGT Purkey, Jr., were captured and became prisoners of war (POWs).

T/SGT Purkey, Jr., and one other crew member, 2LT Charles Evans, the crew navigator, managed to escape on August 27th while being transported by train. They were able to jump off a train from Budberg-Krefeld-Cologne to the Interrogation Center Oberursel.

They did not make it very far after their escape – only traveling about 10 miles/16km southeast before they were caught by German civilians near Trebur where they were trying to cross the Rhine River on the morning of August 29th.

T/SGT Purkey, Jr., and 2LT Evans were taken to Groß-Gerau where they were paraded down the main street and beaten with sticks, stones and fists by angry Nazi civilians who had recently been bombed by allied aircraft. The local security police arrived shortly after and dragged away the two airmen and proceeded to beat them to death with iron bars in the closed courtyard of the city hall.

T/SGT Purkey, Jr., and 2LT Evans are both listed as killed in action (KIA)/murdered and were initially buried in the community cemetery at Groß-Gerau. After the war ended, T/SGT Purkey, Jr., was disinterred and temporarily buried from the WWII Dead Program in Margraten-Aachen-Holland cemetery.

On January 16, 1946, the Deputy Theater Judge Advocate’s Office, War Crimes Branch of the United States Forces, European Theater, convicted Nikolaus Fachinger and Heinrich Flauaus, both Nazis (Case No. 12-793 – US v. Nikolaus Frachinger and Heinrich Flauaus) of this war crime and were sentenced to death by hanging.

T/SGT Harvey Jenning Purkey, Jr., was returned home to American soil and buried with full military honors on April 29, 1949, at the Arlington National Cemetery (Section 34, Site 2984). The burial ceremony began with a chapel service and ended with the ceremonial rituals from the Honor Guard, the firing of a military volley and the sounding of taps.

T/SGT Purkey, Jr., was awarded posthumously the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Purple Heart, the World War II Victory Medal, and the European/African/Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.

On August 29, 2018, on the anniversary of the murder of T/SGT Purkey, Jr., and 2LT Evans, a plaque was placed in the city hall where they were murdered just outside the courtyard in Groß-Gerau. The plaque reads: “We commemorate the U. S. Army Force corps soldiers, Charles H. Evans, Jr., and Harvey J. Purkey, who died on August 29, 1944, here in the courthouse; after the beating citizens drove the U. S. soldiers through the streets. We remember them.”

SOURCES USED:

Ancestry.com: Birth Records; 1920, 1940 Census Records; U. S. WWII Draft

Registration Cards; Army Enlistment Records; U.S. Nat’l Cemetery Internment

Control Form

Findagrave.com

Fold3.com: Military Records; Missing Air Crew Report #8464

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/dachautrial/fs59.pdf

https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/person/harvey-jenning-purkey

https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/unit/306th-bomb-group-reich-wreckers

If you noticed anything missing in this profile, you may contact the author.

Contributing Author: clerickson220@gmail.com

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the U.S. WWII fallen and saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the name of the fallen and read his/her story.

Harvey J Purkey Jr