SOLVAY PLANE CRASH

Some World War II casualties inflicted
close to home

I was six years old when it happened and until recently I thought perhaps my memory had confused old dreams for real events. But my poking around the internet finally paid off – and now I wonder what took me so long.

An Army plane really did crash just outside of Solvay. It was returning to the airstrip in Amboy, about two miles northwest of the village. The airstrip was part of what was then the Syracuse airport and during World War II it was also part of the Syracuse Army air base.

It was Sunday night, July 2, 1944; my parents and I were watching a movie at Craig's (aka the Community) Theater on Milton Avenuye. My one-year-old sister, Mary Beth, was at home with my grandmother, who lived next door to us.

Suddenly we heard the roar of engines as a plane flew overhead. I'd never heard that sound while inside the movie theater, which meant the plane must have been flying very low. Seconds later the theater went dark and then someone summoned us outside.

There was nothing to see, but someone who had been outside the theater said the low-flying plane appeared to have struck the top of the tallest building in the village, a 19-story structure that was part of the sprawling Solvay Process Company complex located across the street.

There is no mention in the stories below, but I believe the plane did hit either a flagpole or an antenna on a tower atop that Solvay Process building before it crashed in a field well short of the airstrip. As years went by, my mind somehow linked this incident with one that occured in 1945 when a B-25 bomber hit the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors, and killed 14 people.

And while the stories below indicate otherwise, security was nonexistent a couple of days later when my uncle Bill Smolinski took my cousins and I to the crash site and we freely walked around looking for pieces of the plane. We actually walked off with at least one. It's another of a zillion or so examples of how the world has changed in the past 65 years. Today a military or civilian police official would have prevented people from even parking their vehicles near the scene.

Other crashes

Syracuse Post-Standard, July 3, 1944

Plane crashes west
of Solvay, three killed

A C-47 army transport from the Syracuse army air base burst into flames and crashed at Gere's Lock in the Belle Isle Road, also known as the Old Airport Road, at 9:10 p.m. yesterday killing the three members of the crew.

According to observers, the plane was approaching the municipal airport from the east, when it banked north, its motors skipping and trailing black smoke. It lost altitude rapidly, and exploded before crashing about 100 yards off the highway.

WIRES RIP OFF MOTOR

In the plunge downward, the transport ripped thru high tension wires, which pulled off one motor and propeller. Two of the men were thrown from the plane, one striking the ground about 25 yards from the road and the other about 60 yards from the road. The pilot of the plane stayed in until the crash, when he was thrown out under the left wing.

Frank Napoli of the Belle Isle Road and another man dragged the pilot from the burning plane shortly after the crash. He was pronounced dead by the intern from St. Joseph hospital whose ambulance was called by Frank Nizer, who lives near where the plane crashed.

The propeller of the ripped motor was found in the road and the engine just off the road toward the wreck. Fire apparatus was sent immediately from Solvay, but the plane continued to burn for about an hour.

When the plane hit the high tension wires, lights in the village of Solvay, about one mile away dimmed momentarily and white flashes were seen in the vicinity of the crash.

All available deputies from the sheriff's department were sent, as residents within several miles of the explosion flocked to the scene, blocking traffic and imperiling themselves due to fallen wires.

Syracuse Herald-Journal, July 3, 1944

Three fliers die
in crash

Cargo Plane Hits Power Wire Strand;
Machine Disintegrates as It Comes
Down in Small Field

Three youthful pilots of the Troop Carrier Command based at Syracuse Army Air base were killed almost instantly at 9:10 P.M. yesterday when their twin-motored cargo plane crashed and burned in a field at Gere's Lock near the city municipal airport. Lt. Col. Harry P. Galligher, base commandant, identified the victims and their next of kin as:

2nd. Lt. William Miller, 19, son of Hyman Miller, Bayonne, New Jersey.

2nd. Lt. Theodore E.Armstrong, 19, son of Eldridge E. Armstrong, Elbert, Texas.

2nd. Lt. Seymour M. Kirschenbaum, 20, son of Maurice M. Kirschenbaum, Chicago Illinois.

Bodies Sent Home
The bodies of the airmen, held over night at the county morgue, were sent to their homes today.

The plane, similar to those seen in the air over Syracuse day and night, apparently developed trouble while flying on a routine training mission out of the Army Field and headed downward. It missed a large section of high tension wires that run across Belle Isle Road and struck a single strand wire carrying 425 volts.

After striking the wire it crashed into a small field on the Naples farm at Belle Isle and State Fair Roads.

Motors Torn Loose
It struck with terrific force and disintegrated. The tail section was broken clear of the fuselage, the motors tore loose from their mounts in the wings and the propellers tore free of the engine shafts.

Two of the pilots were thrown clear of the wreckage as it bounced across the field, while the other was thrown to the ground, still strapped to his seat, beneath the left wing.

Officers at Syracuse Army Air Base were unable to say which of the three was at the controls at the time of the crash as the pilots alternate while on training flights. The plane burst into flame as the gasoline tanks broke open. None of the crew members, however, was burned.

Two Witness Crash
Frank Napoli, of Gere's Lock, and a man whose identity was not learned, witnessed the crash and rushed to the wreckage. They pulled the body from beneath the wing.

An Army board of inquiry, composed of a group of officers at Syracuse Army Air Base, went to the scene of the crash this morning and examined the wreckage in an effort to determine the cause.

From eyewitnesses, it is believed one of the engines developed trouble and caused the ship to do down.

John S. Pendergast, director of the city bureau of municipal research, was at the municipal airport at the time. He said his attention was attracted to the plane when he saw smoke trailing from the ship

"The plane lost altitude rapidly as the smoke increased in volume," Pendergast said. "It didn't plunge vertically. When it disappeared below my horizon I knew it was crashing and listened, but didn't hear anything.

Power Goes Off
"Next I saw a red flash, followed by an increasing red glow. Just a second before this the electric light power at the airport went off. The airport switched on its diesel motored power plant and the lights went on again."

The crash attracted hundreds to the scene and as the wreckage lay blazing on the ground, other cargo planes roared overhead on their training flights.

Napoli told Sheriff Robert Wasmer he heard a noise "like a ripping clap of thunder, and my wife ran to the window and saw the fire." Napoli lives about 200 yards from the scene of the crash. Continuing he said "I ran toward the plane and with another man I didn't know and tried to find the fliers."

Sheriff Called
"We saw one of them under a wing. We ran up, shielding our faces against the flames, and pulled him up a bank and among some trees in front of the lock. We thought he was alive."

Frank Gilanti of 2851 Milton Avenue, another witness to the crash, telephoned the sheriff's office at 9:12 P.M. and reported the accident. Sheriff Wasmer with Deputies Justin King, Charles Post, Walter Foote, Leo Beebe, Edward West, Raymond Saaler, Raymond Dear, Robert Kanasola and Jailer Clifford Black sped to the scene.

A call was put through to the Rev. Carl Denti, assistant pastor of St. Cecelia's Church, Solvay, and he went to the field and administered last rites over the bodies of the three.

Crowds Kept From Wire
Solvay police and Fairmount auxiliary policemen assisted deputies in keeping the crowds of curious back from the live wire that was snapping and crackling on the ground. This danger was cleared after emergency crews from the lighting company made repairs.

The Air Base was informed of the tragedy and within a few minutes Base intelligence officers and military police arrived and cleared the field of all spectators.

Solvay Fire Department sent one of its trucks to the field but the intense heat from the blazing wreckage prevented them from getting close enough to extinguish the flames.

Horrace Mosher and Carmen Petrocci, whose addresses were not learned and who witnessed the crash, told Army officers the ship was traveling in a westerly direction and the right wing seemed to be dipped. The plane motors roared in a sudden burst of power, they said, indicating the pilot sought to gain altitude when the crash came.

As the plane struck the wire, lights in Solvay dimmed momentarily. The accident happened about a mile west of Solvay.

Syracuse Post-Standard, July 4, 1944

Military secrecy shrouds probe of fatal accident

Investigation of the crash of a twin motored cargo plane in which three young officers of the troop carrier command died in a Gere's Lock field near the municipal airport Sunday night is being made by Lt. Col. Harry P. Galligher, commandant of Syracuse army air base, and an air accident board of three members. The officers, who died when the cargo plane was torn apart as it struck a high tension wire carrying 425 volts, were identified yesterday as:

Second Lt. William Miller, 19, son fo Myman Miller of Bayonne, N.J.

Second Lt. Seymour M. Kirschenbaum, 20, son of Maurice M. Kirschenbaum of Chicago, Ill.

Second Lt. Theodore E. Armstrong, 19, son of Eldridge E. Armstrong of Elbert, Tex.

Inquiry Unfinished
The board spent yesterday on the investigation but has not completed the inquiry and has not arrived at any conclusions, Lt. Col. Galligher said last night.

Military secrecy will veil the investigation until the proper time arrives for the disclosures he indicated. Among personal effects of the three officers help temporarily at the county morgue, is a wrist watch worn by Lt. Kirschenbaum. It bears the inscription: "Seymour from Dad - Happy landings - 12-21-43." The watch stopped at 8:43 p.m.

Identification of the three pilots was not made officially until after notice had been received by parents. Arrangements were made yesterday for shipments of the bodies.

The cargo plane was reported to have been on fire about 200 feet above the ground shortly before it struck high tension wires while an attempt was being made to land it in a field while on a routine training mission.

Guard Wreckage
Military police guarded the wreckage yesterday and kept civilians away from the area where the debris was scattered in the field. The tail section was broken from the fuselage.

Some distance away were the motors, torn loose from their mounts in the wings. The crash stripped off the propellers.

Two of the three pilots, who were killed instantly, were thrown clear of the wreckage. The other was pulled from beneath the left wing by Frank Napoli, who lives nearby, and an unidentified neighbor. Napoli said he believed the pilot was alive but was pronounced dead when a St. Joseph hospital intern arrived with the ambulance.

Sheriff Robert G. Wasmer and nine deputies took charge at the accident scene until officers and military police arrived from the air base. There will be no investigation by the civilian authorities as it comes entirely within military jurisdiction.

Other crashes

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