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Courtesy Photo/Image
Nose and fuselage of the wrecked B-17.
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Courtesy Photo/Image
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Courtesy Photo/Image
View from the wing: the wreckage near Wellfleet, April 10, 1945.
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Lauren Roach was 11-years-old when a WWII “Flying Fortress” bomber crashed near Wellfleet in his uncle’s wheat field. Roach read the story of that crash in the Bulletin Nov. 18, in a book review of Nebraska’s Fatal Air Crashes of WWII, by Jerry Penry. Roach now lives in Silver City, N.M. “Part of my morning routine is to check out the local news from the Bulletin, and it was a thrill to see a news story and the information that led me to find the story from Jerry,” Roach said. “I can still remember the B17s flying over and the sounds they made, and of course reading about the new airplane and seeing a B29 flying over,” he said. “Our farm was located four miles south of Wellfleet and was in the flight pattern to the McCook air base.” The fatal crash occurred April 1945 when the B17 “Flying Fortress” in that flight pattern flew too low and hit a ridge in the dark. It broke apart, scattering metal and airmen in its wake. The pilots walked to farmer Burr Loyd’s house, Roach said. Loyd called the McCook airbase and then Roach’s uncle, Harold Markee. With another neighbor, Johnny Rothemeir, the men drove to the aid of the survivors. Five of the 14 airmen aboard died at the scene. “It took several hours for help to arrive from McCook, as this was about 40 miles,” Roach said. “I think everybody in and around the area came to see what was left of the big airplane,” he said. “I was in school and unable to see the crash site, but my parents and brothers were there.” “Since my uncle was one of the first on the crash scene, we sat at his kitchen table and he explained to me all about the crash,” Roach said, “and was very careful to omit the details about the fatalities.” His oldest brother, Floyd, helped about a dozen neighbors move the fuselage so that it could be salvaged, he said. The crash site was on the road to the school he attended, so he was able to see the torn and twisted metal as the plane as was hauled away. Researcher and author Jerry Penry uses a metal detector to locate crash sites. Surprisingly, he found about 20 small pieces of wreckage at the Wellfleet site, even though Roach said that after the Army left, his parents, uncle, and “all the kids” went to the field to pick up leftover scrap. “I would like to think that that there are still pieces of that plane in my uncle’s scrap pile,” he wrote. Penry sent Roach the e-mail address of the last living survivor, the pilot George Withee. “Let me assure you that I'm still about,” Withee wrote Roach. “I will be 88 next March. So far, so good.” “Since this air crash was a big part of my growing up, it has stuck with me all my life,” Roach said, “and it was a great thrill to be able to contact the pilot of the tragic crash.”
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