Ernest 'Ernie' Haar was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, on 2 October 1918.

Upon being drafted into the service in July of 1941, Ernie was processed at Ft Dix, New Jersey, and then transferred to Camp Croft, South Carolina for infantry basic training. Upon completion of the course at Camp Croft, he was transferred to Ft Barrancas, an old Spanish fort adjacent to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida. This was a small, permanently stationed coast artillery station with a Station Complement for administrative duties. Ernie was assigned to the Finance Department.  It was during this time that a US Army Air Corps recruiting team visited the station to interview candidates for the Air Corps Cadet program. Ernie volunteered, passed the exam and became an Aviation Cadet.

Upon completion of training in early January 1944, Lt. Haar and his crew were transferred to the 859th Squadron of the 492nd Bomb Group at Alamogordo, New Mexico, where they trained as a group.  The crew flew to England via the Southern route and after additional operational orientation within England, Ernie flew his first mission on 12 May 1944. 

Lt. Haar completed his missions with the 467th Bomb Group at Rackheath and then remained there to assist in checking-out and training newly arriving replacement crews.

In December 1944 he was transferred to the 61st Troop Carrier group at Grantham, England, to teach the twin engine C-47 pilots to fly the bigger B-24 type cargo aircraft known as C-109s. It was here that he was involved in a mid-air collision that he luckily survived but not without some injury.

In later years, Ernie Haar kept busy in various projects associated with the 492nd Bomb Group Association and the Mighty Eighth Memorial Museum at Savannah, Georgia, and assisted a number of veterans in having their stories recorded at the museum as part of their oral histories project. Ernie served as a Director of the 492nd Bomb Group Association. He passed away on February 08, 2018,