Harold Terens - Army Air Corps 1942-45
Harold talks about his time during WWII
Harold Terens - Army Air Corps 1942-45
Harlod talks about being honored at the D-Day 75th Anniversary
Harold Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio operator mechanic (ROM).
On D-Day — June 6, 1944 — Terens helped repair and paint planes headed for D-Day. He said half of his company's pilots died that day. Terens went to France 12 days later, helping transport freshly captured Germans and just-freed American POWs back to England.
He then went on a secret mission. His planes hopscotched North Africa before eventually landing in Tehran. There, he survived a robbery that left him naked in the desert and fearing death until an American military police patrol happened by.
He learned the details of his covert mission when he was deposited at a Soviet airfield in Ukraine. As part of a new strategy, American bombers would fly from Britain to attack Axis targets in Eastern Europe. They didn’t have enough fuel to return so they would fly to the USSR. Terens' job was to get the crews fed and the injured treated before they flew their refueled planes home. Terens soon contracted dysentery, which almost killed him.
Following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Terens again helped transport freed Allied prisoners to England before he shipped back to the U.S. a month later.
He married his wife Thelma in 1948 and they had two daughters and a son. He became a U.S. vice president for a British conglomerate. They moved from New York to Florida in 2006 after Thelma retired as a French teacher; she died in 2018 after 70 years of marriage. He has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
This 80th D-Day 2024 anniversary will be Terens’ fourth D-Day celebration in France. He received a French Legion of Honor medal from President Emmanuel Macron five years ago during the 75th DDAY anniversary.
Amazingly, Harold also plans to get married again on the Normandy Beach after this 80th D-Day ceremony.
