Harry Louis Bochman

1927 - 2024

Harry passed away peacefully at home in Seal Beach the morning of Friday, January 5th at the age of 96 surrounded by family and care-givers.
He was born in New Bedford Massachusetts. He met his future wife Eleanor in 1944 at the start of his senior year at New Bedford High School. Under yearbook pictures was a word or two about "Ambition" plus a descriptive characteristic. Harry's picture had "Aeronautical Engineer" and "Romeo". Eleanor's was "Aviatrix" and "Juliet". They were made for each other.
He enlisted in the Navy and reported for duty at the end of his senior year in 1945 while WWII was still going. He landed in the hospital with a kidney injury in his final week of boot camp. Japan surrendered while he was in the hospital and he received an honorable discharge in September 1945 after serving his entire military career in boot camp.
With help from the G.I. Bill he enrolled at the New Bedford Textile Institute in a Mechanical Engineering course. His first job after graduating was as a draftsman at the Continental Screw Company in New Bedford where he worked his way up to a Special Projects Engineer.
In 1948 Harry married Eleanor at her parent's home in East Freetown Massachusetts. Harry's father gave them a piece of land for a new house. The house was ordered from a catalog and came as a pile of construction material complete with instructions. Harry and his father spent the next year building the house on weekends and evenings.
After several years at Continental Screw Harry got restless. His ambition in high school was "Aeronautical Engineer", but aerospace was big in Southern California, not Massachusetts. In 1955 Harry and Eleanor left New Bedford and headed west in a 1952 Buick Super pulling a U-Haul trailer. The trip to California took about 10 days, mostly on route 66. He was a brave man – doing this with 2 small kids and without credit cards, GPS, cell phones, Auto Club or booking.com.
Harry attended the Northrop Aeronautical Institute in Los Angeles to get the aerospace engineering training he needed. He got his first aerospace job in 1958 with Hi-Shear Corporation in Torrance.
At Hi-Shear Harry designed many tools that became company products. A common theme of his work at Hi-Shear was with what are known as Explosive Actuated Hardware for the AeroSpace Industry, more commonly known as Separation Nuts. These are the gizmos used to hold sections of a rocket, or other device, together, then allow them to separate later.
Early separation nuts would explode and send shrapnel flying everywhere. That wasn't acceptable when Hi-Shear worked with Hughes Aircraft and JPL on the Surveyor Moon Lander Spacecraft. The Surveyor required a Separation Nut to release and eject the large retro rocket motor attached under the spacecraft between the 3 landing legs. He designed a smaller nut that functioned with a much smaller explosive charge that ever previously used. The first Surveyor Moon Lander safely landed on the moon on June 2, 1966. A total of 5 Surveyor spacecraft made successful Moon landings. These, along with Harry's separation nuts, are still sitting on the moon. A prototype of the Surveyor is on display at the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum in Washington DC. If he knew you were going he'd tell you where to look for the separation nuts. Harry made many design improvements to the Separation Nut over the years. These were used on the Viking Mars Lander, Pioneer Spacecraft, Delta Rocket, and the Space Shuttle program. A later version was used on the Mars Spirit and Rover to release the heat shield and lower the ramp to allow the Rover to drive off the platform and onto the surface of Mars.
In 1959 the family moved into a brand new house on Crestview Avenue in Seal Beach. The $21,000 price tag was quite a stretch, but Harry and Eleanor loved the house and the small town feel of Seal Beach.
Harry retired from Hi-Shear in 1993 with the position of Chief Engineer. During his career he was granted a total of 17 U.S. and Canadian patents. In retirement Harry and Eleanor visited England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and several of the states they missed on previous vacations - 45 of the 50 US states in all. In his later years you might have seen him at the Hangout and going down the pier with his walker and caregiver Ann.
Eleanor passed away at home on Crestview Ave in April 2020. Harry passed away in the same room almost 4 years later. 79 years had passed since the 1945 New Bedford High yearbook was published. Romeo and Juliet are together again.
Harry is survived by his 3 children – Bill, Steve, and Patty, 3 granddaughters – Jennifer, Erin, and Shawna, and 3 great granddaughters – Mia, Savannah and Olivia.