Hero for the Ages : Huntington Beach Readying Belated Ceremony for a 1934 Lifesaver

Bert Harding Jr., 75, can barely see. He’s hard of hearing, suffers from diabetes and has a disc problem. But this is the man that Huntington Beach will honor next month for his rescue of two men who nearly died when their boat ran out of gas and was ripped to shreds by the crackling surf.

It was no septuagenarian miracle. The rescue happened back in 1934, when Harding was 17. He’s waited more than half a century for any recognition.

“I never so much as got a thank-you note from the city,” said the retired oil tool mechanic, real estate broker and acrobatic pilot.

At the time of the rescue, Harding was “surfing my merry way and didn’t much care” about plaques and citations, he recalled.

But such oversights have a way of gnawing at a man through the decades. At the urging of a friend, Harding decided to push his own cause 58 years after the fact, and city officials agreed it was better to reward his efforts late than never.

“I get very emotional about this,” Harding said as his eyes filled and a tear fell onto photocopies of articles about the rescue and letters about the award. “I’m very proud.”

Other events are a little muddy in Harding’s memory. He gets mixed up over whether things happened before World War II, when he was a B-29 commander in the Army Air Corps, or since. He doesn’t remember how long he has lived in one place, or when he worked at which job. He can’t quite keep track of his six children, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

But he remembers the rescue like yesterday.

It was late afternoon on a Sunday in the summer of ’34. He was resting on the beach after hours of riding the waves when he heard the phone ring at the lifeguard station. There was no lifeguard to be seen, so Harding, an off-duty lifeguard himself, answered.

“I thought it might be trouble,” he said. “And I was right.”

Within minutes, the boy was in the water, dragging a rescue buoy toward a broken-down 25-foot fishing boat, which was being tossed around by huge breakers. He climbed aboard the boat to find two frightened young men who told him they couldn’t swim.

Harding, a lifelong surfer and seasoned swimmer, tied ratty canvas-and-cork life preservers around the necks of 21-year-old David Russell and 22-year-old Charles Wright, both from Inglewood. He coaxed them to jump and told them to hold tight to the red, torpedo-shaped copper buoy that Harding was pulling via a seven-foot rope.

As the waves broke, Harding grabbed the men’s collars, and told them to “kick like hell.” To keep their mind off the danger, the three sang 15 rounds of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” Meanwhile, the sea tore the boat to shreds.

Two hours later and two miles down the coast Harding pulled Russell and Wright to safety. They were whisked away for emergency medical treatment, and Harding “fell flat on the sand, absolutely exhausted.”

“I just did it automatically,” the 6-foot-2, silver-haired man recalled. “I was too young to be scared. Didn’t have enough sense.”

Having moved to Huntington Beach when he was 4, Harding was a self-described “beach rat.” He built his own surfboard, 60 pounds worth of pine and waterproof plywood, at age 15, and started as a lifeguard the summer of 1931.

“I spent most of my time under the water so I’ve got half salt water in my veins,” said Harding, a four-year letterman and former captain of the Huntington Beach High School swim team. “It’s just in my blood.”

In the summer before his senior year, Harding and a buddy hitchhiked to the World’s Fair in Chicago and then to sight-see in New York City. He got back Sept. 8, and went to his beloved beach the next day. That’s when the rescue happened.

“Those men would have been washed up on the beach a few hours later, probably with all their bones broken,” Harding said, glad he heard that phone ring. “They would have died for sure.”

Although an executive at Standard Oil Co., where Harding’s father worked for decades, said he would nominate the teen-ager for the Carnegie Foundation’s heroism award, nothing ever came of it. The city “hushed it up,” according to Harding, because no lifeguard was on the beach when the call came.

So nearly 60 years later, at the urging of lifelong friend Al Watkins, Harding went down to the city’s lifeguarding station to ask for his just reward.

Marine Safety Capt. Bill Richardson checked the archives at lifeguard headquarters and found index cards documenting the rescue. He contacted the Carnegie Foundation, but officials there said they had no record of Harding’s nomination. Moreover, Harding is ineligible--Carnegie awards must be given within two years of a heroic act.

Unsatisfied, Richardson asked the city’s Community Services Commission to make up a special award for the retired rescuer.

“They didn’t do what they should have done and we’re trying to set it right,” the chief lifeguard said of the city’s failure to recognize Harding’s efforts in a more timely manner.

Reliving the memories has been wonderful for Harding, who keeps a red torpedo rescue buoy, just like the one he used to save Russell and Wright, by the pool in his back yard. He bought a new sport coat for the plaque presentation July 8, and is working with lifeguard Kai Weisser to reconstruct some of the early history of Huntington Beach.

Harding’s wife, Barbara, says the sudden attention and activity have revived his spirit.

“Before, all he did was watch TV,” she said. “But since this happened, he’s changed. He’s interested in life.”