Bernard "Bud" Bier
T/5 in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : Co B, 1st Platoon
ASN#12219157 Casualty: Wounded
Born 1923 in NY, Died 2021
Artist
County of residence at enlistment: Bronx County, NY
Other residence(s): New York, NY; Freeport, NY; Plainview, NY; Dartmouth, MA
United States Army, European Theatre of Operations
College education before the war: Pratt 1 year
College education after the war: Pratt
Bernard Bier was born in Brooklyn, NY on October 1, 1923. He was the only child of a salesman father and a Russian-born mother.
He attended Pratt for one year before enlisting in the Army on December 14, 1942.
Like many other Ghost Army soldiers, he created a number of illustrations during the war but only one survives—the rest were lost after he was wounded and hospitalized. (He was accidentally shot by another soldier in November, 1944.)
When he returned to the US after the war, while awaiting possible transfer to the Pacific, he met Ruth Hirschprung, a dancer, who was performing in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma at the time. They married in 1947.
Bud graduated from Pratt after the war and worked for over 40 years as a commercial artist. He was responsible for the package designs of many products that are now household names—Chiclets, Dentyne, Rolaids, Arid Extra-Dry, and many others.
The Biers eventually moved out of the city, living on Long Island in Freeport and later in Plainview. They became parents of two sons, Jonathan and Alan, and a daughter, Karen, a Cornell graduate who passed away in 2005.
After he retired as executive art director at Carter Wallace, he and Ruth traveled the world and eventually moved to Dartmouth, MA. There he became a member of Congregation Tifereth Israel in New Bedford, and once again took up something that had been a lifelong hobby—building and flying radio-controlled aircraft. He had been a member of many model airplane clubs over the years and had served as president of the Long Island Drone Society. At the age of 90, he reported that he was "up to [his] ears in balsa wood and glue and having a very good time."
Bud died on June 11, 2021.
Photo:
2016 photo in Boston Globe article (see below)
Sources:
1925 NY state census
1940 census
1942 draft card
1942 enlistment record
1944, GA Legacy Project, Tompkins Diary
https://ghostarmy.org/thearchive/october-to-december-1944/
1947 marriage record
2013 article in South Coast Today about his GA experience with biographical details
https://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20131107/PUB03/311070380
2014 article in Rhode Island Jewish Voice, p. 13
https://issuu.com/jvhri/docs/voice_feb_14
2016 Boston Globe article re GA (first link is beginning of article and second link is continuation of article; photo is at second link)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/444575402/?terms=bier&match=1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/444575600/?terms=bier&match=1
2021 Obituary
dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/providence-ri/bernard-bier-10229896