Harold Loch was born on November 29, 1919, in Denmark, Wisconsin. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces on November 17, 1941, and after completing basic training, flight engineer training, and aerial gunnery training, he was assigned as a flight engineer and top turret gunnery on B-17 Flying Fortress bombers with the 324th Bomb Squadron of the 91st Bomb Group in England in October 1942. Sgt Loch joined the crew of the B-17 "Memphis Belle" in February 1943, completing his tour and returning to the United States with the bomber in May 1943. He and the crew then completed a war bond tour across the United States with the famous B-17 from June to September 1943. He remained in the United States for the remainder of the war, and received an honorable discharge from the Army Air Forces on October 17, 1945. Harold Loch died on November 12, 2004, and was buried at Fort Howard Memorial Park in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.