Harold Marland Rumball was born in January 1924 in Summerland. He was the son of Laurence Wilbur Rumball and Olive Annie Rumball. He was raised and educated in Summerland. He graduated from High School in June 1943 and like so many others, promptly joined the war effort. His choice was to follow his two older brothers in the RCAF.
As a young fellow growing up in a small town, he, like his fellow students joined the High School Cadet Corps where he experienced his first taste of military life. He had a passion for cars. He spent much of his spare time drawing what he saw as the cars of the future. There was little doubt that after the war, he was heading for a career in the automotive industry.
After joining the RCAF, he was stationed in Edmonton. This was followed by stints in Hamilton, Camp Bordon, Mont Joli and Three Rivers Quebec. Ss a Flight Sergeant his first overseas posting came in April 1944 at Bourne Mouth, followed by Insworth , Dalton and finally Disnfurth England. It was here he was trained as a waist and tail gunner on Wellington, Halifax and finally Lancaster bombers. Because of his small size, he was ideally suited for the cramped quarters of the tail gunnner and that was where he served.
From these places he flew ops into Germany, including Cologne, Oberhausen, Dusseldorf and Mannheim to name a few.
In January 1945 he was promoted to the rank of pilot Officer while still serving as a tail gunner in Lancaster bombers. On his 21st birthday in 1945 while flying a mission to Frankurt, his plane was hit by an anit-aircraft shell. The tail section was severed and the plane crashed.
His body was later located near the small German village of Unterweissenbrunn. After the war, his remains were recovered and re-interned in the BritishMilitaryCemetery in HanoverGermany. He rest in plot 6 Row E Grave #11. The cemetery is now looked after by the Imperial War Graves Commission.