Death of a B-17 bomber crew: Fort Benton remembers the 1943 crash

Seventy-two years ago, 10 U.S. Airmen died in a fiery crash six miles outside Fort Benton.

The crew of Flight 42-5128 were all members of the 2nd Bombardment Command at Great Falls Army Air Base (later renamed Malmstrom Air Force Base), training to serve aboard B-17 Flying Fortresses to fight in the war against Nazi occupied Europe. Their sacrifice went almost unnoticed and was almost forgotten; a casualty of national secrecy during a time of war — until now.

On this Memorial Day a small group of researchers, citizens, retired veterans and a few family members will gather at Veterans Park in Fort Benton. There they will dedicate a small memorial to the men of Flight 42-5128 — paying the honor too long denied to men who gave the fullest measure of sacrifice to their country, even though they never saw a single battle over the skies of Europe.

"These 10 men are all from out of state," said Hank Armstrong, a Chouteau County historian who has spent the last seven months researching the story of Flight 42-5128 "One was from Los Angeles, one from New York and two from Michigan. In one case, (Paul Peterson) it was his day off and they needed one more man on the plane. He ran to get on the plane, and of course was killed. It was his day off."

The crash occurred shortly after midnight on Sept. 2, 1943, during a night bombing exercise out of the Great Falls Air Base. The crew was instructed to fly to a bombing target field outside of Big Sandy, but they never made it. For a still-undetermined reason, the B-17 exploded in mid-air, then plummeted to the ground just a few miles outside Fort Benton.

There were no recorded witnesses to the crash, and Army officials remained quiet about the incident for as long as they could. It more than a month later before any public report on the crash appeared in local newspapers. A vague acknowledgment of Flight 42-5128 was announced on Oct. 9, 1943, in the middle of a story focusing upon a second B-17 crash that occurred in full public view on the morning of Oct. 1, 1943, just two-miles outside Big Sandy.

"Base officials were out at the site within probably two hours," Armstrong said of the Fort Benton crash. "They cordoned off the area and took all the big stuff."

The Army's crash report was classified for decades. It's analysis of the incident was only recently uncovered by research volunteers investigating the crash of Flight 42-5128.

"When the accident occurred ... the airplane in question was apparently flying in a northeasterly direction six-miles east of Fort Benton at a fairly low altitude," the crash report states. "The pattern of the wreckage indicates the direction of flight, and several stop watches indicated the time of the accident. The dispersal of the wreckage and the absence of craters or furrows indicate the plane exploded before striking the ground; that the angle of contact was nearly vertical.

"Ten bodies were found dispersed around the wreckage," the crash report goes on to say. "The co-pilot was found in the wreckage, in the flight deck. All others were thrown clear. The co-pilot was burned with 3rd-degree burns all over, but still strapped in the flight deck. There are no eye-witnesses, and there is nothing to learn from examination of the wreckage that would lead to a determination of the immediate cause of the explosion. There was no apparent pilot error involved."

While the crash report was not precise in its analysis of a probable cause for the crash, the recommendations included within the report indicate the investigators believed the catastrophe had something to do with auxiliary fuel tanks that had been installed in the B-17's bomb bay area.

"1.) Inspect gasoline cells and lines more often and more carefully," the report recommendations state. "2.) If bomb bay tanks are installed, always keep them full. 3.) Prohibit smoking in airplane."

With no survivors and no eye-witnesses, it is unlikely that anyone will ever know with certainty what caused Flight 42-5128 to explode. What is certain, however, is that the men who died in training during WWII — and their families — was inconsistent with the degree of honor and respect given those men and women who died in battle.

An often overlooked statistic from WWII is the number of U.S. servicemen who died before they ever got to war. According to the "American Battle Casualties Final Report" published in the U.S. National Archives, more than 88,000 U.S. airmen lost there lives during World War II.

"Only the army ground forces suffered more battle deaths," the report states.

However, nearly 36,000 of those 88,000 Army Air Corps fatalities did not occur on the battlefield. They came as the result of nearly 26,000 aircraft accidents, "more than half of which occurred within the continental United States."

In short, for every 11 American airmen who died in combat during WWII, another three — roughly 14,000 men — died in training before they ever left the United States. The sacrifice of those men has gone largely unrecognized and unheralded. Concerns for war time secrecy prevented any lasting tributes.

"The men who were killed in the training crashes were definitely treated differently," Armstrong said. "A man who was killed in action may have had medals, he may have had a narrative of his actions in battle, and an officer would go in person to the family's home with his condolences and tell them what they wanted to know. All the families got in a training accident was a telegram saying their son was killed. Then the body was sent home, but the men accompanying the body either did not know or did not say anything about the crash, so the families got nothing."

"It's hard to believe they were treated that way," Armstrong added. "There was a paranoia, either real or imagined, that the west coast was going to be invaded by the Japanese. It was a standard procedure not to publicize it — don't let the enemy know that we're having trouble with our airplanes. For 72-years no one really knew what happened."

That oversight continues to this day. The researchers in Fort Benton asked for representatives from Malmstrom to attend today's memorial. Their requests for some recognition from military officials were responded to with little interest and no commitment.

"Diane Jones has been a great help in organizing this memorial," Armstrong said. "She contacted them (Malmstrom Air Force Base), and the one chaplain that was on-duty (out of four stationed at the base) had something at another service at 1 p.m. on Memorial Day and didn't want to come out at our ceremony earlier. She (Jones) asked, 'What about the other three?' and he said 'That's all their day off.'"

There will be no representative from Malmstrom Air Force Base at today's ceremony.

Recognition for the 10 men from Flight 42-5128 has come exclusively from the efforts of private citizens and historical research organizations. Those efforts began with Marshall Fisher, an Army Air Corps veteran who recorded 29 missions as a B-17 ball-turret gunner in WWII. For his service Fisher was award the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war he settled in Chouteau County, were he worked for many years as a state livestock inspector.

Throughout his maintained a deep commitment to the memory of the men who had served in the Army Air Corps. Shortly before his death in June 2014, Fisher commissioned and paid for a marble headstone etched with the names of all 10 men who died aboard Flight 42-5128.

"He knew of this crash and wanted to do something," Armstrong said of Fisher. "He had that stone engraved and set at his own expense. He received no recognition whatsoever for what he did. It was never dedicated, it was never publicized. There wasn't much of a base for it (the marble headstone) and it kind of fell forward."

It was easy to overlook the cockeyed memorial standing across the street from the Fort Benton, until a local Chouteau County man, Ron Sevelle, took the time to reset the headstone. Then the River and Plains Society and the Overholser Historic Research Center became involved, aided by Missing Contrails Archeology, an aeronautic archeology research organization that surveys historical military crash sites across the United States.

Missing Contrails founder, Henry Franken, is an Air Force veteran with a life-long interest in military aircraft history. Franken was deeply involved in earlier research into the Oct. 1 crash of a B-17 bomber from Great Falls Army Air Base just outside Big Sandy. With help from volunteers from the River and Plains Society, the group set out to uncover as much as they could about Flight 42-5128.

On March 14 of this year, they conducted a detailed geographical survey of the crash site; roughly one-half mile off state highway 80 and a few miles southeast of Fort Benton.

"The main crash site had not been known before," Armstrong said. "Parts of it were scattered all over, but the main crash site was in cropland that had been farmed for all these years."

Despite decades of disturbance to the site, six-inches beneath the soil's surface researchers found a treasure trove of artifacts.

"We found close to 200 items," Armstrong said. "The big chunks were all gone. What we were finding were smaller parts that were broken up. We found 12 .50-caliber ammunition casings with the year (1942 or 1943) printed on the base. Each item was first flagged after they located it, then they went around and GPS'd each one (Global Positioning System). We found all kinds of engine parts, but we were a bit disappointed in not finding more personal items."

Only two artifacts believed to have belonged to the men of Flight 42-5128 were found at the crash site. One was a coat button from an Army Air Corps overcoat; the other, a small glob of melted silver.

Measured and weighed, the silver glob conformed to the dimensions of a U.S. silver half-dollar; common currency in the early 1940s. It was likely a piece of pocket change carried by one of the men who died that night aboard Flight 42-5128.

The items collected at the crash site were photographed and cataloged, and will be housed at the library of the Overholser Museum in Fort Benton.

Monday at 11:30 a.m., nearly 72-years since the tragic crash outside Fort Benton, the men of Flight 42-5128 will finally be honored.

Those who perished

Ten United States airmen lost there lives in a B-17 bomber crash outside Fort Benton on September 2, 1943. Their names are as follows:

•2nd Lt. Harold L. Wonders

•2nd Lt. Warren H. Maginn

•2nd Lt. Jack Y. Fish

•2nd Lt. Arnold J. Gardiner

•Sgt. Robert H. Hall

•Sgt. John T. Hough

•Sgt. Carl E. Lower

•Sgt. Chester W. Peko

•Sgt. Curio C. Thremonti

•Pfc. Paul M. Peterson

Their sacrifice will be honored at a memorial service at the Fort Benton Veterans Park at 11:30 a.m. on Monday.