B24 Bomber Crash The Conclusion

For all of my readers who have been hanging on for the conclusion of my post A B24 Crashed in a Cow Pasture… here it is, & it truly is an amazing story of lasting friendship, the kindness of strangers & closure for one old man who was part of “The Greatest Generation”.  Please note: I have taken some editorial license with this story, mostly shortening it up for space, but these edits do not change the essence of the story. And again, I want to thank the author, Bill Marvel, for allowing me to share this awesome story with you all.

Earlier this year, mom died of cancer in Kansas City a few months before their 62nd anniversary.  Dad came out to Grand Junction, Colorado to visit my wife and me in May and then was here a second time in August after attending a family reunion with us near Pueblo.

A couple of days before he was to leave and drive back to his home in Kansas City I asked him what route he was going to take on the return trip.  He said he would drive on Interstate 70 because he wanted to see if he could find out where Humpy’s plane had crashed.  I was taken aback by this not only because I had never heard of that goal but also because dad is now 85, needs a cane or walker to get around following heart bypass & knee replacement surgery & most important, had no clue where this crash site was except “four miles south and four miles east” of the small town.

Nice thought, but enter reality.  Who would we contact?  Were there roads that could take us to the general location of the accident site?  Was it a populated area, a farm, open range land or what?  How would we find the site?  If we did find it, was there anything there to confirm it as a place an aircraft had crashed?  And most important to me, where was I going to land the plane to meet my dad & his car?

But then I looked at my calendar and realized something that motivated me to press on to a solution to all of these problems.  In three days it would be August 9, 2007 – exactly 63 years to the day that Humpy died in that crash.  In a very real way, his life was the basis of mine and my brother’s.  Had he not been alive on D-Day to introduce our parents to each other we would not exist.  The odds were slim but the timing & the significance of the event were important.  I would try my best, realizing that this was a very, very long shot.  What I did not realize then was that in the next few days we would meet & be helped by some of the most wonderful people on this planet.

I needed to find a paved runway to land my plane & was able to locate a private air park called Kelly which was not far from the crash site. I located a contact at the air park, Frank, who put me in touch with his friend Dick who was very accommodating & explained to me how to taxi to his house & hangar.

But the most important question remained.  Who knew where the plane crash site was?  Neither Dick nor Frank had ever heard of it but they had not lived in the area that long.  At some point in a subsequent call I asked Frank the obvious question – was he aware of anyone in the area who lived there in 1944 & thus might have known of the crash.  Frank said there was one neighbor on a farm not too far from Kelly Air park who was in his 80s & who was born in the same house where he currently lived.  His name was Bryce & when I phoned him I was glad I have a strong heart at age 61 because what he said would have floored me otherwise.

Bryce is now 80 & distinctly recalls the accident.  He was building a silo in 1944 at age 17 & saw the aircraft crash.  He was one of the first on the scene & pulled deceased crew members out of the wreckage so their bodies would not burn.  Sharp as a tack & still farming every day, he told me very matter of factly, “I can take you to within 100 feet of the crash site.”  He also told me that he would be retiring from farming at some future date when he got old!  In less than 24 hours I had gone from not having any idea that dad wanted to find the location of Humpy’s final moment of life to locating a man who could take us to the exact spot.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Bryce also told me that the two friends who accompanied him to the crash site, brothers Walt & Marv, also lived in the area & would help us with the search.  Keep in mind that all of these people were total strangers to me but every one of them wanted to take part in this effort to help my dad find the crash site & close out a most important question in his life – where is the site where the person who introduced him to his now deceased wife had died?

To leave no stone unturned I contacted Larry Carpenter, the aviation researcher who had acquired the crash report initially in his work with the Pueblo Air Museum.  When I told Larry what we were doing, he was excited about it & said he was going to try to alter his own schedule to participate.  But he did offer a note of caution that dimmed my growing optimism.  It turns out that Larry had contacted Walt on his own last year & had been taken by Walt to the site.  Larry had a metal detector & was unable to locate any sign of an aircraft crash.  Walt believed the military had completely removed all traces of the wreckage, as did the current owner of the property, Russ.

The site was in a hay field & had been cultivated many times in the six plus decades since the crash occurred.  My hopes were dimmed that dad would be able to take a piece of Harold’s aircraft home with him but we were still going to try.  At least we would be in the immediate vicinity of the accident & that would bring a degree of closure to my father.

August 9 dawned bright, clear & calm in one of those classic Colorado days of deep blue skies & unlimited visibility.  Marti and I took off from Grand Junction & arrived at Kelly Air park as planned.  Shortly after we parked the plane & met Dick, things just started to fall into place; dad’s car was coming down the road, followed by Bryce &  Frank.

We headed to the crash site & along the way we saw Bryce’s farm as well as the silo that Bryce was building when he watched that burning B-24 lose its right wing and spin into the ground several miles to the east.  I had a sense that this was going to be a very good day.

When we pulled into the road that led to Russ’s farm, Marti & I were stunned by all the people there.  Thirteen individuals comprised our group, which also included three metal detectors.  Bryce, Walt & Marv, who were first responders after the crash, braving the flames & explosions to pull several of the deceased crew members out of the plane, were there.  Aviation researcher Larry Carpenter was there as well, having driven over two hours from Estes Park to search an area he had already searched unsuccessfully the previous year.  In only a few days we had gone from a seemingly crazy idea to a group of motivated and excited people now all assembled at the same place & at the same time to help total strangers bring about closure for my dad on this quest.

With no real plan, we moved around the general area of the crash, looking for any visual evidence of the crash & using the three metal detectors to scan the ground.  Now and then a metal detector would go off but all we found was some old barbed wire & a few rusty nails.  We fooled ourselves at one spot thinking there was a large mass of metal in the ground because all three metal detectors were going crazy.  After a little experimenting, we realized that the detectors were sensing the other nearby detectors, not aircraft wreckage.

During our search, different participants pulled me off to the side to thank me for doing this & for letting them be involved.  Imagine that – they were there on their own time helping us find this airplane and were thanking me!  Bryce, Marv & Walt had some differences in recollection as to exactly where the plane had come down but none had been there for 63 years so this was not surprising.  They pointed out where they first saw it, the direction it was heading, &  where some components that came off the plane as it broke up were found along the flight path.  But still, we had no evidence of the plane & after an hour it was pretty clear we were not going to find any.  Little by little, all of the team members gradually moved back to the starting point, thus quietly signaling that our vaunted effort was not going to be rewarded.

The last ones out in the field were Larry Carpenter, & his wife. Not enough can be said in praise of these two.  Although neither is a pilot, they use their own time & money to research past crash sites & have amassed an incredible amount of information on accident locations, causes & personnel lost.  In some cases they have made contact with relatives of those who perished.  If they wish, Larry guides family members who want to close that chapter in their lives to the scene of the crash that killed their loved ones. 

Larry had given up on the use of the metal detector & was merely looking at the ground.  He had seen many airplane crash sites & knew that it is almost impossible to remove all evidence.  He also had the advantage of knowing where he had looked without success previously, & was further away from the starting point than the rest of us.  A shout, “here it is!” came from Larry’s direction and we all moved there, about 100 yards from where we had started.  The unmistakable evidence of small aircraft parts littered the ground. Riveted pieces of aluminum, broken segments of heavy cast metal, Plexiglas, parachute snap fasteners, a part of a magneto coil, melted globs of metal &  other small pieces of debris were scattered around the area. We gathered up the parts & placed them in a little pile so dad could take what he wanted. Larry placed a small American flag in the ground near the components & we held a moment of silence in memory of the 10 men who had died on that very spot in their B-24 so long ago.

I am so glad to have been able to share this story with you, my dear readers, & hope it gave you the same warm feeling it gave to me.

As a brief footnote, I recently saw a statistic that said 16 million Americans served in WWII; 558,000 of those survive today but 362 are dying daily. If you have any stories from friends or relatives that were part of The Greatest Generation, I would love you to tell me about them in the comments.

Until next time, Happy Trails!