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Peter Harding (1919–2006) 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. == Experiences as a prisoner of war == After capture, Harding spent from 1941 to 1945 in a Prisoner of War camp, Stalag Luft III, the scene of many escape attempts. His severe asthma, which he had concealed from his RAF recruitment medical, prevented his participation in escape attempts. Instead he acted as an artificer, manufacturing items for use by escaping airmen. He had provided support and materials for numerous escape attempts, including those described in the films ''The Wooden Horse'' and ''The Great Escape''. This involvement in escapes was not revealed until after Harding's death. Harding indicated that in captivity he had no fear of his captors, save when two RAF prisoners arrived who had been mistakenly been initially sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. The inmates of the camps were carefully selected and trained military personnel. As such, Harding indicated that they found significant pleasure in the incompetence of the 3rd rate troops set to guard them. In late 1944 he and his fellow prisoners were subjected to the forced march of Allied POWs from Eastern Germany in the face of advancing Soviet troops, during which he was forced to leave behind many personal objects, including his prison diary. Harding was freed in 1945 by units of the Soviet army advancing into Germany, the camp guards having deserted their posts. Their liberation started with a protracted and indecisive duel between two armoured vehicles outside the camp. After a period the two vehicles realised that they were both in fact Russian and ceased fire. Harding stated that he and his colleagues had been extremely frightened by the wild behaviour of the Soviet troops, recalling that one soldier was drinking a liquid that appeared to be gasoline. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peter Harding (metallurgist)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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