Spouses/Children:
1. Ruby Mae Scott
FamilySearch ID: G9YS-535.
Noted events in his life were:
1. Newspaper: The Daily Item, 3 Feb 1960, Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. 2 Miss Scott Weds Harry L. Bucher
Miss Ruby Mae Scott, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward F. Scott, 15th and Queen Streets, and Harry L. Bucher, son of Mrs. Lena M. Bucher, Northumberland RD 1, and the late George S. Bucher, were united in marriage Tuesday afternoon at the home of Justice of the Peace A. G. Benson, Lewisburg. Mrs. Bucher attended Northumberland schools and Mr. Bucher, who operates a disposal service, graduated from Northumberland High School. The couple plans to reside in Northumberland.
2. Newspaper: The Daily Item, 11 May 1970, Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. 3 North'd Soldier Dies In Vietnam
Staff Sgt. Harry L. Bucher, U.S. Army, was killed instantly Saturday when a motor vehicle he was working on at Pleiku, South Vietnam, exploded. He was 34 years of age.
Details of the accident in which Sgt. Bucher, a ten-year veteran, lost his life, were not known by the family who was notified this morning by U.S. Army officials.
According to the family, Sgt. Bucher who was a mechanic attached to the motor pool at Pleiku, was engaged in making repairs to an vehicle when the vehicle exploded.
He was apparently struck in the head some of the flying debris and was killed instantly.
Army officials informed the family the body would be flown to the United States. Details of the funeral will be released by the Army later.
Sgt. Bucher, who leaves a wife and three small children, was serving his second tour of duty in South Vietnam.
A maintenance supervisor, Sgt. Bucher left last November for his second year's tour of duty in South Vietnam. It had only been six months since he last served a year's tour of duty before going back to Vietnam.
Prior to serving in South Vietnam, he was stationed in Germany for a time. Prior to his second tour of duty in South Vietnam, Sgt. Bucher was located at Fort Bliss, Texas.
A graduate of Northumberland High School, Sgt. Bucher was the son of George and Lena Bucher, deceased. He was born in Northumberland Feb. 3, 1936.
He was the husband of the former Ruby Scott, of Northumberland RD1, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Scott. In addition to his wife he is survived by three children, George, Gina and Pamela, all at home; four brothers, David and William of Northumberland; Houston Bucher, Sunbury, and Michael of Ford City, Pa.; two sisters, Miss Helen Bucher and Mrs. Kathryn Renninger, both of Harrisburg.
Sgt. Bucher was the second Northumberland area man to lose his life in the Vietnam action. Cpl. William Rodkey, US MC, lost his life in action in Vietnam on August 28, 1967.
3. Newspaper: The Daily Item, 10 Feb 2002, Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. 4 5 (photo) Bob Mertz visited John Bucher's grave on Okinawa in 1945 and brought photos back for the Bucher family.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4
On April 1, 1945, the U.S. Tenth Army under the command of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. invaded the Japanese held island of Okinawa. The Japanese defenders did not contest the initial American landings, but fought desperately once U.S. troops moved inland. American forces were closing in on Japan, and Okinawa's fanatical defenders were more than willing to die for their emperor. The island became a slaughterhouse.
The Japanese committed themselves to the idea of death before dishonor. Many chose suicide over surrender. Kamikaze planes by the hundreds hurled themselves at the American fleet, sinking thirty ships and damaging many more. Japanese ground forces burrowed into the earth, forcing U.S. troops to root them out with grenades and flamethrowers. When the battle ended more than three months later, nearly 109,000 Japanese officers and men were dead. The Americans captured the island.
U.S. forces paid a terrible price for their victory. General Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery, one of more than 12,500 Americans killed in action on Okinawa. More than 38,000 U.S. troops were wounded or missing in action. The toll of civilians lost in the intense fighting numbered in the thousands.
Okinawa was a decisive victory in the Pacific theater of operations. The American military believed it would be necessary to invade the Japanese home islands in order to crush enemy resistance once and for all, and they planned to use Okinawa as a base for the massive operation. The dropping of atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 made an invasion of the home islands unnecessary.
John Bucher, a 25-year-old soldier from Northumberland in the 77th Infantry Division, the so-called "Statue of Liberty Division", was killed in the Okinawa fighting in May 1945 and buried on the island. Bucher, one of eight brothers and sisters from the small Pennsylvania borough, was drafted into the army in 1942. Another brother, George S. Bucher Jr., served with the 97th Infantry Division in Europe during the war.
John Bucher completed his basic training in 1942 and, for the first two years of the war, was assigned to various posts in the United States. Helen Bucher, John's sister, remembers John coming home on three-day passes when his duties brought him close to Pennsylvania. His sister recalls that Bucher sometimes spoke to students at Priestley Elementary School. When it was time to return to duty, Bucher boarded the train at the Front Street station and rejoined his unit.
Helen was 15 when her older brother was killed on Okinawa. According to a newspaper clipping from the era, "The last word received by his parents was written April 28. In that letter which was heavily censored he told of fighting on both sides of him and intense bombardments of the island."
Upon learning of Bucher's death, Bob Mertz, a young man from Point Township serving in the U.S. Navy decided to visit the soldier's grave when he arrived on Okinawa in the fall of 1945. Mertz and Bucher graduated from Northumberland High School. Bucher graduated in 1940 and worked as a brakeman in Baltimore on the Philadelphia Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad before being drafted. Mertz graduated in 1942 and attended Bucknell University prior to entering the service.
While at Bucher's grave on Okinawa, a companion photographed Mertz. The photograph shows Mertz kneeling near a cross with Butcher's name on it. A dog tag is fastened to the cross. In the background, two or three other visitors walk among the rows of crosses and Stars of David marking the resting places of American soldiers. The cemetery is neat and orderly, but devoid of any flowers or decorations. It is a scene of stark and tragic beauty, reflecting the enormous sacrifice made to defeat the Japanese empire.
In 2002, Mertz, now 77, remembers coming home and showing the photograph to members of Bucher's family. The family was hit hard by the loss, according to Helen, but they persevered despite their grief.
Sadly, a quarter of a century later, the Bucher family of Northumberland was touched yet again by the hard hand of war. Harry Luther Bucher, brother of John and Helen, was an army staff sergeant serving his second tour of duty in South Vietnam when, on May 9, 1970, he was killed in what a computer database coldly categorized as a "non-hostile/ground casualty/other accident." A faded article in a family scrapbook described the accident, "Bucher was making repairs to a vehicle when it exploded and he was fatally struck in the head by flying debris." Sergeant Bucher left behind a wife and three children. He was one of four young men from Northumberland to die during the Vietnam War. He died exactly 25 years and two days after his brother John was killed on Okinawa. According to Helen, Harry mentioned John in his last letter home.
Today, Helen Bucher and her brother David are the only surviving siblings of the Bucher family. David lives in a nursing home, and Helen visits him every day. John Bucher's body was brought home from Okinawa and buried in Northumberland Memorial Park near Stonington. The army returned Harry Bucher's remains from South Vietnam. He is buried at Riverview Cemetery in Northumberland.
A family who sacrificed so much for their country might be expected to feel a great deal of sadness, or perhaps even a touch of bitterness, about their losses. Helen Bucher does not see things that way, however. When speaking about her. brothers whose lives were cut short by war, Helen said, "We. remember the good times.' "I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid such a costly sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."
.
Harry married Ruby Mae Scott, daughter of Edward F. Scott and Unknown, on 2 Feb 1960 in Lewisburg, Union, Pennsylvania, United States.
1 Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52213035.
2 The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA), 3 Feb 1960 page 10.
3 The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA), 11 May 1970 page 1.
4 The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA), 10 Feb 2002 page 17.
5 The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA), 10 Feb 2002 pages A-16 A-17.
Table of Contents | Surnames | Name List
This website was created 15 Mar 2025 with Legacy 10.0, a division of MyHeritage.com; content copyrighted and maintained by searchtrees@gmail.com