Monument will be erected to honor 1945 plane crash victims and survivor

By Brian York
Tribune-Courier Reporter
byork@tribunecourier.com

HARVEY – Cpl. Irving A. Elias is a survivor and a World War II veteran who lived to fight another day.

He is a survivor of a fatal plane crash of a B-29 bomber known as a “Superfortress,” which just seemed to disintegrate one hot July night as it was flying through the air.

No, it wasn’t shot down by the Nazi’s or the Japanese during a heated battle on July 1, 1945. In fact it wasn’t involved in a battle at all.

The four-engine war-plane simply fell from the heavens right here in Marshall County. It fell to the ground near Soldier Creek Baptist Church in Harvey because of an electrical storm at 1:05 a.m., just 45 minutes after refueling in Nashville.

It had to be a pretty powerful storm, considering B-29 planes were the largest and most powerful U.S. bombers of WW II. They flew many raids against Japan and were the planes that dropped the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On board this particular plane were four officers and six enlisted men. Only one, Elias, would manage to escape via parachute and live to tell the story.

Elias was the plane’s left waist gunner. He had told the Benton Tribune-Democrat on July 2, 1945 that he had just left his post when there was a loud explosion that ripped the plane apart as it was flying through heavy rain and the electrical storm.

Elias was in the tail of the aircraft when the explosion happened, and he was thrown clear, opening his parachute and falling nearly 8,000 feet.

Upon landing, he took refuge under a bush where he stayed until daybreak.

When the sun finally rose, he made his way to the residence of Maxine Bohannon and the late Ernest Bohannon.
In an Associated Press article, Maxine said they heard a knock at the door and just yelled “come in” as they thought it was a neighbor.

To her surprise, it wasn’t a neighbor, but a stranger in Army green holding a parachute.

Maxine’s husband Ernest, drove Elias to the hospital in Mayfield. Other than a few lacerations on his face, hands and feet he was unhurt according to the Tribune-Democrat.

Before Army officials could arrive and place guards at the scene, hundreds of people had already viewed the wreckage.
Some came out of curiosity, some to grab a souvenir and some to fan the flies from the bodies. Their bodies were eventually taken to Fort Campbell.

“When Elias came in, we couldn’t understand a word he was saying, because he was from Brooklyn,” Bohannon said. “We knew he needed medical attention, so we took him to the hospital, and they got in touch with the officials at Fort Campbell. We then went back and found the biggest two parts of the plane, there were four people in one and five in the other.

“Elias said one minute he was in the back of the plane and the next we was flying through the air. When the morning came, he made his way to our house as it was the first one he came to.”

One witness, Mildred Clark, said it didn’t take long for the news to spread to Benton.

“We were in Sunday school and had a 30-minute break before church started,” Clark said. “We went up to Nelson’s Drug Store, and that is when we heard the news. A friend of mine had a car and asked if we wanted to go see it, so we did.”

Bohannon said looking back she wishes she and her husband would have stayed to talk with Elias, but her husband was curious to see the crash.

“The officials brought him back up to the plane site, but we never did talk to him again,” Bohannon said. “Ernest got a letter from the colonel at the air force base in New Mexico thanking him for taking care of Elias. I thought since then, one of us should have stayed with him, but Ernest was worried about finding the plane.”

The B-29 was based at Kirtland Air Force in Albuquerque, N. M. and was on a routine flight. It had refueled in Nashville shortly before it was lost.

Now, nearly 63 years later, two Marshall County natives are trying to honor those fallen soldiers.

Gary Teckenbrock and Josh Tubbs are both trying to get a monument dedicated to the soldiers as well as track down the whereabouts of Cpl. Irving Elias, if he is still alive.

“Mainly what we are trying to do is get a monument put up honoring these men that died and the survivor,” Teckenbrock said. “We are in the process of designing a monument, and we are contacting family members of the crew. Out of the 10 we have contacted six different families. We have talked with three brothers, a sister, and two nephews and we are really working hard to find the other four family members.”

Teckenbrock said they approached the Marshall County Fiscal Court last week with the idea and were given the word “go.”

“We approached the Fiscal Court last week and asked if they would be interested in erecting a monument for this crew,” Teckenbrock said. “Of course, it is 60 years too late, but when the plane crashed it was a month before the dropping of the atomic bombs and the war was practically over, and usually when war is over you just don’t want to talk about it. That and the fact this county was poor back then was maybe the reason why nothing was ever done.”

Teckenbrock said he always had an interest in the crash and decided it would be a good idea to finally pay proper tribute to these fallen soldiers.

“I grew up in this area, and my grandparents lived about a quarter of a mile from where it happened. When it happened they got up the next morning and there were parts in their yard and scattered throughout the field,” Teckenbrock said. “It just scared them to death, and I have had an interest in it for a long time.”

Teckenbrock said trying to track down information on Elias has been hard.

“He has been one of the hardest ones to contact,” Teckenbrock said. “His name was Irving A. Elias and he was from Brooklyn, and if you type that name in on a people search, you will get 13 different Irving A. Elias’. We are still working on him. It is possible that he is alive. It isn’t probable, but certainly possible.”

No one really knows what the purpose of the flight was for the B-29 as it left Albuquerque and was to head through the south, back up through Kentucky and on to Colorado, before returning to New Mexico.

“All the accident report told was they flew out of Albuquerque, N.M. and they flew over Mobile, Ala. and then turned north,” Teckenbrock said. “They stopped in Nashville to refuel, and from there they were to fly over an air force base in Colorado and then back to Albuquerque.

“It never really said what the point of the flight was. This plane had only 39 hours on it when it crashed, so it was a fairly new plane.”

The land in which Soldier Creek Church now sits is no doubt covered in rich history. Teckenbrock said it is amazing to think about all that has taken place near that building.

“We were just talking the other day about how steep in history that building is,” Teckenbrock said. “You could bring a school group over there and I could show them a Revolutionary War veterans grave, four or five or six Civil War veteran’s graves, and you have World War I and II veterans graves.

“You have a church, which was the first one established west of the Tennessee River, and 200 yards away you can take them to a B-29 plane crash.”

Teckenbrock said they don’t just want to honor the men with a rock that has their names, but they want people to know their story.

“We are in big hopes of getting as many members of their families here for the dedication,” Teckenbrock said.

Nine men from each corner of the country in places such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Mississippi met their fate in 1945.

Those men were Cpl. Roy G. Berryhill, Ward W. Copenhaver, Eugene M. Graham, Ronald A. Krzyzan, Delmer H. Lumberg, Arnold R. Rushton, James B. Schetzscle, Richard O. Snow and Joseph Aron.

These men did not die in battle like so many did in the second great war. They did not lay their lives on the line for a friend or at the hand of their foes. However, they did die serving their country, and for that they will be honored and remembered.