As the airliner swooped down to Milwaukee’s airport last week,
the folks in the homes below couldn’t miss the roar of the plane’s engines. I
know. I lived one summer across the street from the end of a runway at Green
Bay’s airport. At least it is rare for a plane to miss the runway.
Imagine living in England’s East Anglia district during World
War II. The open terrain of farmland was ideal for airfields, and the Royal Air
Force and the US Army Air Forces built dozens, all close together. The
Americans occupied 67 airfields.
The planes often took off in the wee hours, rousing the
entire countryside. Often the weather was foggy. Collisions were too common,
with fully fueled and heavily armed airplanes dropping on whatever had the
misfortune of being under them. Damaged planes returning from bombing missions
didn’t always make it to their airfields.
A refurbished American B-24 Liberator bomber on a test
flight crashed into an English village of Freckleton and killed 61 people,
including 38 school children at Holy Trinity School, on August 23, 1944. It was likely the worst air
disaster in England during WWII.
At
10:30, two B-24s took off, but a storm kicked up, and they were
instructed to immediately return to the base. By 10:40, conditions had
seriously deteriorated, with heavy rain and wind gusts hitting 60 to 70 miles
per hour, uprooting trees in the area.
At 10:41, the Classy
Chassis II began its approach to the airfield. As the planes dropped down
to 500 feet and lowered their landing gear, they encountered heavy rain and
zero visibility. The second pilot aborted his landing and headed northward out
of the storm. The pilot of Classy Chassis
II tried to abort his landing as well.
It didn’t happen. As the pilot tried to retract the
landing gear and pull the aircraft out of its approach to the runway, the
violent turbulence and wind gusts threw the 25-ton aircraft with 2,793 gallons
of aviation fuel into Freckleton at 10:47 am. The Classy Chassis II first clipped some trees, then cartwheeled. The
impact killed the three crewmen. Three homes were partially damaged and the Sad
Sack Café was demolished, killing killed 18 of the 20 people inside.
The bomber slid across a road and slammed into the
infants’ wing of the school. Inside were 41 four- to six-year-old children and
two teachers. Seven children and the two teachers were pulled from the burning
classroom; only three children survived their injuries. They endured years of
surgeries.
Five-year-old Ruby Currell was one of the survivors. “It’s
something you don’t forget. It doesn’t diminish. Not for me.”
Wow! I had never heard if this. Thanks for the history lesson.
ReplyDeleteI was not aware of this incident. What a tragedy. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteMy Uncle Michael was killed in this horrific event. He was four years old. Seven of the children could not be identified because their bodies were so badly burned. My uncle was one of the seven that could not be identified. My Aunt was also in the school at the time of the crash but she was able to escape. My Mother told me that my Grandmother was so distraught because she didn’t know which casket held her baby. She didn’t know which casket to look at during the mass funeral. She never got over this terrible tragedy. God bless all of their souls.
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