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At approximately 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 12, 1957, U.S. Air Force B-52D Stratofortress, No. 56-597, from the 92nd Bombardment Wing, was taking off from Runway 5 at Fairchild Air Force Base (AFB) on a routine training mission. According to eyewitnesses, as the aircraft left the runway, it made an abnormally steep climb to an altitude of approximately 2,000 feet. Fire started coming from the jet engines and pieces of metal began flying off the engine cowlings and mounts. The aircraft stalled, executed an abrupt, right wingover and appeared to level off. But, at an altitude of approximately 500 feet, the plane nose dived and crashed in a stubbled wheat field one mile west of the base. Exploding jet fuel sent a large column of smoke into the sky, attracting scores of curious onlookers.
Fire fighting and crash-rescue equipment from Fairchild AFB rushed into the area, followed by ambulances and other vehicles carrying Air Force security officers to safeguard equipment and documents classified Top Secret. The Washington State Patrol and Spokane County Sheriff's Department blocked all roadways surrounding the scene of the crash to all but authorized personnel. Newspaper reporters and photographers were temporarily banned from the area, but the Fairchild's Public Information Office gave them information as it became available. The Air Force declined to say whether the crashed B-52 was carrying nuclear weapons.
The impact of the crash almost disintegrated the aircraft, with wreckage strewn for hundreds of yards. The largest remaining pieces were the tail section and the aft portion of the fuselage housing two of the four main landing gear dual-wheel assemblies. Although pieces of the wreckage were burning, the fire was mostly confined to an area where thousands of gallons of jet fuel had spilled. Wearing heat-reflective, asbestos suits, firefighters drove into the fields and smothered the hot spots with chemical foam. Occasionally, one of the bomber's eight tires exploded, sending everyone ducking for cover.
Rescue workers and firefighters worked throughout the night, trying to locate the bodies of the victims. Of the nine crewmen aboard the B-52, four managed to eject from the falling aircraft, but none survived the low-altitude bail-out. Four died, trapped inside the burning the wreckage. The tail gunner miraculously survived the crash and was found sitting in the open field some distance from the burning plane. As bodies were recovered, ambulances transported them to the morgue at Fairchild Hospital for identification.
The Survivor's Story
The lone survivor was Technical Sergeant Gene I. Graye, age 25. He told reporters he had great faith in the pilots and didn't ever think about the plane crashing. "But as soon as the plane started into a dive, the captain ordered us to bail out. I pulled the turret jettison handle. The turret went and I pulled my safety belt loose. I had one hand on the ripcord, but I couldn't get out of the aircraft. The next thing I knew, I was in the aircraft on the ground. My left foot was caught. I tried to get it loose, but I couldn't.
Everything was pretty blank then for a few minutes. I don't remember getting out of the aircraft, but I do remember running and stumbling over the ground. I don't remember hitting the ground, but I do know that for what seemed like a long time, I was upside down in the aircraft," Graye said (The Spokesman-Review). Sergeant Graye was held overnight at Fairchild Hospital and then released after being treated for minor injuries.
Remembering, Investigating
On Friday, December 13, 1957, the Air Force brought in heavy cranes and lifted the larger pieces of the aircraft onto flatbed trucks. All the wreckage was collected and transported to a hangar at Fairchild AFB for a detailed inspection. The tail section was sent to the Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle where the cause of the accident would ultimately be determined.
At 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 14, the Air Force held a memorial service for the eight victims of the tragedy in hangar 4040 at Fairchild AFB. The service, conducted by Major Frank E. Wiley and Major Jack P. Dalton, base chaplains, was attended by more than 4,000 persons, mostly Air Force personnel in uniform. Afterward, a flyover, the traditional Air Force memorial salute, was made by a formation of Boeing B-52s from Fairchild and Washington Air National Guard Convair F-102 Delta Daggers from nearby Geiger Field (renamed Spokane International Airport in 1960).
On Thursday, December 19, 1957, Major General Joseph D. Caldara, director of flight-research safety for the Strategic Air Command (SAC), announced the results of his 53-man team investigating the mishap. It was caused by faulty wiring in an electric motor controlling the horizontal stabilizer which controls the climb, making the aircraft to do the opposite of what the pilot intended. It was the first time faulty wiring had caused a B-52 to crash and it was likely they would never learn how it happened or who, if anyone, was responsible. There was no indication of sabotage. All SAC bases were alerted to inspect the wiring on their B-52s.
One of the victims was Colonel Clarence A. Neely, commander of the Strategic Air Command's 92nd Bombardment Wing at Fairchild AFB. He had assumed the position of wing commander in June 1956. It was Colonel Neely who had flown the first B-52 Stratofortresses to Fairchild on March 27, 1957. He was survived by his wife, Frances, and son, Martin, age 12.
Casualty List
Ralph Romaine Alworth, Major, age 38, Oilton, Oklahoma
Douglas Earl Gray, Captain, age 33, Guthrie, Kentucky
James Dennis Mann, First Lieutenant, age 33, Mountain View, California
Clarence Arthur Neely, Colonel, age 42, Rockford, Illinois (92nd Bomb Wing Commander)
Thomas N. Peebles, Captain, age 33, Carson, Virginia
Douglas Franklin Schwartz, Captain, age 37, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Herbert Henry Spiller Jr., Captain, age 32, Lowell, Arkansas
Jack Joseph Vainisi, First Lieutenant, age 26, Oakhill, Illinois
Survivor
Gene I. Graye, Technical Sergeant, age 25, Augusta, Kansas
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.