Peter Harding (metallurgist)

rdf:langString Peter Harding (metallurgist)

rdf:langString Peter Harding

rdf:langString Peter Harding

rdf:langString Forest Hill, London, England

rdf:langString Peter Harding (11 May 1919 – 24 January 2006) was an RAF reconnaissance pilot, World War II Prisoner of War and participant in The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III, Peter Harding was a significant figure in the student life of the Royal School of Mines from 1946 until his death on 24 January 2006 at the age of 86. He conveyed historically useful information concerning the liberation of Allied POWs from Nazi camps at the end of World War II. Peter Harding was born on 11 May 1919 and was schooled at Dulwich College. In 1939 he went up to Royal School of Mines, (a constituent of Imperial College), to study Metallurgy. He moved to Swansea when the department was evacuated in 1939 to avoid the threat of bombing. He joined the University of London Air Squadron in 1939, with a view to learning to fly combat aircraft. Upon finding that undergraduate students were reserved from military duties, Harding deliberately failed his end of year examinations in order to enlist with the Royal Air Force as a pilot officer. He flew Spitfire PR1 Photo Reconnaissance aircraft out of RAF Benson from early 1941. On 27 August 1941, while flying a sortie to photograph the harbour at Kiel, his engine failed at high altitude and he was forced to bail out over Nazi Germany. He was immediately apprehended and incarcerated.