Name: Harold Higson Spicer Rank: First Lieutenant Service Number: O-555137 Service: 405th Fighter Squadron, 371st Fighter Group, 9th Air Force, United States Army Air Force Awards: Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart Date of Birth: August 5, 1917 Place of Birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Date of Enlistment: July 7, 1944 Place of Enlistment: Air Corps, 1st Air Force, Mitchell Field, Long Island, New York Address at Enlistment: 6434 Pascal Ave, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Age at Enlistment: 26 Next of Kin: Mrs. B. Spicer Wharton (Mother), Philadelphia Date of Death: March 18, 1945 (near Metz Aerodrome) Age: 27 Cemetery: Luxembourg American Cemetery, Luxembourg Grave: Plot H, Row 14, Grave 67 Harold Higson Spicer was the son of George David Spicer (1896-1978) and Bertha Keighley (Higson) Spicer (b. 1898), and the brother of George David Spicer (1920-1920), Alfred Spicer (1920-1921), and Charles Stewart Spicer (1922-2001). His father was born in Pennsylvania, and his mother was English; born in Bolton in Lancashire, England. Still living in Pennsylvania in 1940, by 1941, Harold was living in Halifax County, Nova Scotia. He was employed as an aero-engineering mechanic at the RCAF Station Dartmouth in Eastern Passage, NS. He married Helen Dorothy Mosher (1920-1999) of Woodside, Halifax Co., the daughter of William Henry Mosher and Henrietta Gould (Drake) Mosher. Helen was employed as a stenographer, and her and Harold married on April 13, 1941, at St. Alban’s Church in Woodside. The two had two daughters, Diane Harlene Spicer born April 1, 1942, and Sandra Mosher Spicer born Feb 27, 1944. After his RCAF service, Harold returned to the United States some time in 1944 and enlisted in the United States Army Air Force in July of 1944. Harold trained and served domestically in the US from July 7, 1944, until December 9, 1944, and then overseas until the time of his death in March of 1945. Harold was killed in action on March 18, 1945, near the Metz aerodrome, on return from a combat mission over Germany. On May 18th, Harold was in a formation of eight P-47 Thunderbolt fighters that bombed motor transport and rail traffic and was strafing military road traffic a few miles south of Birkenfeld, Germany (at grid coordinate L575115 in the Modified British System), when he encountered accurate enemy small arms fire, and was hit. He was able to fly his aircraft back to the home airfield at Metz, France, but crashed near the airfield, and was killed. The 371st Fighter group’s 405th Fighter Squadron’s history for March 1945 vividly describes the action as seen at the fighter squadron-level in this period: “On the 17th, 18th & 19th the Squadron enjoyed its most successful operational days since Falaise Gap-Mortain days of last summer. Taking advantage of the perfect weather, the Squadron flew 8 eight-ship [aircraft] missions. Perhaps the most exciting and tense days of the war were experienced by all personnel. As the first few missions came back, excited keyed up pilots unfolded the story of a German rout!” On the 17th and 18th, the squadron destroyed approximately 400 and 371 ememy vehicles each day, and March 19th, “was but a repetition of the previous two days. The Wehrmacht, openly fleeing, was being rapidly destroyed as it tried to cross the Rhine. As the end of the day approached someone suddenly realized that the last mission up was the 500th combat mission flown by the squadron. A fitting end to this day’s occasion was the total of more than 350 enemy vehicles destroyed or damaged, thus, in 3 days, the Squadron accounted for more than 1000 enemy motor transport vehicles; almost as many as in the entire preceding 11 months of operations.” He was initially interred at the Hamm Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg (designated as temporary cemetery 6020 by the US Army Grave Registration Service) in Plot AA, Row 11, Grave 273, and was reinterred at the Luxembourg American Cemetery, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, in Plot H, Row 14, Grave 67. Dorothy Helen remarried RCAF Corporal Willard Sosthenes Leslie (1919- 2003) of Port Mouton, Queens County, Nova Scotia, in 1947. As the remarried widowed mother of Harold’s two daughters, Dorothy applied for US veterans benefits in June of 1950, while residing at RCAF Station Whitehorse in the Yukon.

Sources: findagrave American Battle Monuments Commission – Harold H. Spicer Honorstates.org American Battle Monuments Commission – Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial 371st fighter group 142 Wing