Arthur D. Pierson (Second Lieutenant; U.S. Army Air Forces)

One of the first Renovo boys to be accepted as a flying cadet, Arthur “Bud” Pierson was a 1939 graduate of Renovo High School who served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.

Lt. Pierson flew in the helter-skelter of aerial combat in the Pacific Theater as a co-pilot aboard a B-24 Liberator bomber with the Seventh Air Force. On June 28, 1943, Lt. Pierson made the supreme sacrifice when his airplane exploded on takeoff en route to bomb Japanese-held targets.

Spurred to action on the heels of the Pearl Harbor attack, the 20-year-old left his job at Pierson’s Hardware (located at 616 Erie Ave.) and entered aviation training in early 1942, having never set foot in an airplane. Pierson emerged ten months later a product of “the most mentally demanding training program in the American military” to receive his silver wings and lieutenant’s commission in January 1943. He was then assigned as co-pilot of a ten-man bomber crew.

Pierson returned to Renovo for the final time in March 1943 on a brief furlough before departure for foreign duty with the 11th Bomb Group, where he entered a desperate struggle with the Japanese as part of the early U.S. air offensive. Based in Hawaii, the unheralded Seventh was tasked with launching marathon-like bombing missions from strategic atolls in order to reach targets thousands of miles away. Pierson’s missions were upwards of twelve hours in duration and crews were forced to navigate over the vast empty ocean to reach small island targets. Without incident, crews typically had just enough fuel to return to base.

Shortly after midnight on June 28, 1943, at Funafuti, Tuvalu, Pierson’s B-24 exploded on takeoff and crashed into the sea, presumably after a rogue spark ignited the bombs and fuel on board, killing the 21-year-old Pierson and his entire crew.

Ironically enough, in the minutes before Pierson’s fateful crash, another Renovo resident, Harry Stiner Jr., who was also on a mission but aboard another bomber, was killed in similar fashion when his airplane crashed immediately after takeoff.

Prior to entering the service, Pierson, who was born in 1921, enjoyed playing sports and was an avid outdoorsman, spending much of his spare time hunting and fishing in the Renovo area. He enjoyed driving his Buick, listening to music, and playing pool, in addition to helping maintain the family cabin at Kettle Creek. Along with his family, Pierson was also a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church (corner of 8th St. and Ontario Ave.)

The entirety of Pierson’s story can be read in Air Corps Days: The Journey of a WWII Flyboy, available for purchase at https://aircorpsdays.godaddysites.com/ or on loan from the Renovo Area Library.

Author and researcher: Heath White, great nephew of Art Pierson