War Pilots Trained Over WMass Skies

Source: Union-News (Springfield, MA)

Author: STEPHEN R. JENDRYSIK

CHICOPEE, MA – Six years ago at the United States Naval Academy Chapel, our son Stephen married Catherine Peters of Lincoln, Neb. We gained a lovely daughter-in-law whose career just happens to be naval aviation.

Today, my son and his wife are lieutenant commanders in the United States Navy stationed in San Diego. With our granddaughter, Marie, they live in Coronado a few hundreds yards from the legendary North Island Naval Air Station. Bob Peters was a Marine aviator who shared his love for flying with his eldest daughter. On a recent visit, I watched the Navy fighter planes sweeping over the beach practicing landing after landing. I commented about it being hard work. Cathy agreed, but she said they love it.

Recently, Touchstone Pictures released “Pearl Harbor,” an epic film costing nearly $135 million. The picture has received mixed reviews from critics and historians. This December we will mark the 60th anniversary of the event that forced America’s entry into World War II.

The film’s opening scenes are in a midwestern cornfield where two little boys named Raf and Danny take a brief ride in a crop dusting plane. The rest is pretty obvious. Someday, these two little guys are going to fly for real.

In World War II, thousands of young Americans volunteered for military aviation. A considerable number trained on the Tobacco Plains of Westover Field. Dr. Frank Faulkner, in his book “Westover Man, Base and Mission” reports: “The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, there were lines of volunteers outside recruiting offices throughout New England. Truckloads of recruits from Greater Springfield communities surrounding Westover began arriving at the base. Security was tightened. Local newspaper reporters were ordered to return their press cards and all base personal were photographed.”

Westover Field and the United States Army Air Corps were at war. Within hours after the declaration of war, the War Department launched a massive campaign to recruit the best and the brightest for service in the Air Corps. There were requirements, which included some college, tech school, an aptitude for math, above average courage, patriotism and self-confidence. In other words, the War Department was looking for 100,000 Danny and Rafs, qualified men who loved to fly.

A considerable number of these unique young Americans would receive their formal training for the European Air War in the skies over Western Massachusetts.

In 1994, Thomas E. Martin authored a book that chronicled military air accidents in our region since 1941. The Edward Bellamy Memorial Association acquired a number of copies for our Westover Collection. The author, who was assisted by aviation historian Larry Webster, prepared the book as a basic reference tool for students studying the history of Westover Air Force Base.

In the preface, he writes that the book is not an indictment of air safety at Westover. He adds, “To compare flight safety records of the 1940s with the present is ludicrous.” Martin believes “The Base” has been representative of the continued advances in aircraft flight safety. Constant training and vigilance have produced a number of aircraft accidents. The book was written to honor those brave men who made the ultimate sacrifice.

During the early weeks of the war, Westover Field became an assembly point for Curtis P-40 fighters. The aircraft arrived on flatbed railroad cars with the fuselage in one box and the wings and propeller in another. The planes were assembled, inspected, tested and flown away. This was the base for many fighter units during the early stages of the war.

Martin researched hundreds of rolls of microfilm records of the Springfield Newspapers. He received permission to use the news stories as the basis for his narratives. Many of the entries are basic transcriptions of the news articles with additions from Air Force accident reports. These reports are often terse, perfunctory announcements of tragic deaths in the line of duty.

The first crash fatality occurred on Jan. 30, 1942, at 3 p.m. A fast pursuit craft piloted by Lt. Thomas Charles Bittner, 21, plunged to the ground on takeoff and burst into flames. In February, 2nd Lt. Gordon C. Macarthur from Paris, Texas, died in the Westover Field Hospital from injuries received in an airplane crash. In May, a bomber from Westover Field crashed and burned in a Lakeville street. The following month a crew of three had a “miraculous escape from death in forced landing at Mount Tom; all power shut off from Northampton by accident.” On Sept. 5, Maj. Alfred E. Bent piloted a damaged medium bomber to an emergency landing after six crew members had parachuted to safety. Before the year was over, there would be crashes in Cummington, Westhampton, East Longmeadow and North Wilbraham.

In 1943 and 1944, the hamlets and villages of northern Massachusetts and southern Vermont and New Hampshire were on alert as their volunteer fire departments watched the skies. Westover Field’s brave young airmen were learning and practicing the dangerous art of air war. The planes used live ammunition and the crashes frequently resulted in explosions spraying bullets hampering rescue efforts.

The crashes were unavoidable. There are small memorials in Palmer, Belchertown, North and West Hatfield, Ludlow, South Hadley and Brimfield. In 1944, a B-24 bomber crashed into a Granby farmhouse, killing the four crew members. A few weeks before the end of the war a bomber plowed into a mountainside in Williamsburg. Three died, but seven were rescued by the Goshen Fire Department.

Perhaps the most tragic crash occurred at 10:30 p.m. on the stormy night of July 9, 1946, when a B-17 “Flying Fortress” carrying 25 servicemen home to Westover slammed into the southeastern slope of Mount Tom, killing everyone aboard. The site, at an elevation of about 900 feet and above the former Mountain Park amusement park, now holds a marble monument and flags.

During the war years we became accustomed to the confident hum of an aircraft engine. As a little boy on Sandy Hill, I watched the daily air show. In the 1950s, Chicopee remained a “City with Wings.” The Strategic Air Command’s jet- powered war birds continued the daily show.

Today marks the anniversary of one of the most spectacular accidents in the history of the base. Shortly after midnight on June 27, 1958, a KC-135 jet tanker came screaming over the Massachusetts Turnpike exploding in a ball of flame in Machowski’s cornfield. For many months, the oil spot remained in the center of the cornfield – a silent reminder of the danger and the challenge for those who love to fly.

Stephen R. Jendrysik is a Chicopee historian and a history teacher at Chicopee Comprehensive High School.

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