Site of U. S. Army Air Corps Plane Crash
Sweetwater, Nolan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(0.6 miles east) At 6:05 a.m. on Friday, April 20, 1945, twenty-five Army Air Corps officers and enlisted men left Midland Army Air Field in a C-47 transport plane en route to Berry Army Air Field in Nashville, Tennessee. The flight crew consisted of the pilot, First Lieutenant James A. Bailey; the co-pilot, Captain John R. Rawls; and the flight engineer, Sergeant William H. Edwards. It was Sergeant Edwards' 36th birthday. Included among the passengers were eight officers and fourteen enlisted men. Two Sweetwater cab drivers spotted the plane on fire in mid-air. They notified their dispatcher, who alerted authorities at nearby Avenger Field. A crash landing message came from the plane itself at 6:30 a.m. Another C-47 flying just a few minutes behind the doomed aircraft never encountered a problem. After the crash, parts of the plane were found on a straight line almost two miles from the crash site. By 10:00 a.m. most of the bodies of the victims had been recovered from the smoldering wreckage and taken to funeral homes in Abilene and Sweetwater. The soldiers, whose ages ranged from 20 to 37, were buried in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, D. C. Ten days after the crash, the Army Air Corps Aircraft Accident Classification Board met to determine its cause. It was the opinion of the regional safety officer that the craft had encountered a thunderstorm with only one of its two engines running, putting the plane into a roll. The plane's 4,000 hours of flight time, mainly spent towing gliders, probably caused a weakness in the tail and contributed to its disintegration in severe turbulence. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
At dawn on April 20, 1945, a C-47 transport carrying 25 Army Air Corps officers and enlisted men left Midland Army Air Field bound for Nashville, Tennessee. Sweetwater cab drivers spotted the plane afire in mid-air, and it disintegrated and crashed 0.6 miles east of this spot, scattering wreckage along a two-mile line and killing all aboard — men aged 20 to 37 from across the nation. Investigators concluded the aircraft, worn from 4,000 hours of glider-towing duty, had broken apart in a thunderstorm's severe turbulence while flying on a single engine.
Why it matters
The marker memorializes the often-forgotten toll of stateside training accidents during World War II, when thousands of American servicemen died far from the front while preparing for war.
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Related people
- · James A. Bailey
- · John R. Rawls
- · William H. Edwards
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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W.A.S.P. Training Base: Avenger Field
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