World War II bomber pilot Bernerd Harding, now 90 and suffering from prostate cancer, took a 30-minute ride in “The Witchcraft,” the last B-24 still flying, Sept. 25 from Laconia, N.H., to Manchester, N.H. “It was fun. It was worth it. It’s history,” he said after the flight, the Associated Press reported that day. According to AP, Harding saw this as his final mission and it gave him closure after 65 years since the last time he flew in a B-24, on July 7, 1944, his aircraft was shot down over Germany and he was taken prisoner. Harding, a resident of Milford, N.H., also went back to Germany last month prior to the flight to the village where he was captured. He tried in vain to find the pilot’s wings he had hidden out of fear of reprisals by the villagers.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.