Bedford's Forgotten Airmen

Bedford's Forgotten Airmen

By: Jeffrey Werner Clemens

For many, the Second World War is but a fading memory. With each passing year, the surviving ranks of aging veterans draws thinner. Soon all that will remain of these formidable years will be a secondary source. Unrecorded stories circulated by family members, relics and uniforms stashed in forlorn attics, unread books, and stately memorials of distant battles engraved upon cold and unfeeling stone.
Needless to say, it is important to remember the costs of our hard earned freedoms. Bedford received a terrible shock during the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. The invasion claimed the lives of 23 young soldiers from our community upon the bloody shore of Normandy known as Omaha Beach. Fortunately an appropriate D-Day National Memorial is on the way to pay tribute to all of those who paid the ultimate price on Europe's longest day. But for Bedford, we still have a wartime wound which remains to be healed: a proper memorial for five Army Air Corps men who perished in our backyard during a training mission in 1943. They are Bedford's Forgotten Airmen and here is their story.
It has been seven years since I first learned of the wreck of a B-25 on Sharp Top Mountain. A shattered Skeleton of this medium bomber rests upon the shoulder of the mountain. World War II air wrecks in this country are fairly rare. I immediately took notice of it.
The first sign of the wreck will be the radial engines long since separated from their housings on each wing. In proper airman terms, they are known as Nacelles. Further down, you will find bits and pieces of the aircraft's aluminum skin, to include the sheered off wings (once spanning 67 feet and seven inches wing tip to wing tip). Yet lower, you will chance across the remains of the rear fuselage. Its snapped hulk turned turtle, and bottom skid plate pointing aimlessly towards the sky. Then finally a shield of heavy armor plating which once protected the cockpit.
Each year, the debris field shrinks. Avid souvenir hunters pocket pieces of the ghost plane, which years ago rolled out of the North American Aircraft factory in Inglewood, California. Truly it is a strange place to find such a beast of an airplane. Let alone contemplate the fate of her hopeless crew. Nameless to all, including the numerous climbers who have carved their initials and names into the broken rear spine of a once mighty plane. Once loved and revered by her vanished crew.
The Mitchell bomber (the B-25 design was called the Mitchell in honor of a once maverick Air Force General) looked sleek and deadly. It was a versatile design which served in every front of the war. No stranger to action, the B-25 was personally selected by Jimmy Doolittle for his famed raid on Tokyo, Japan from the pitching deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet. It flew as if on rails and was fairly forgiving, but just like any big warbird, it had to be flown precisely. From nose to tail, it measured out just under 53 feet. It stood an imposing 16 feet and four inches high. Each wing held a powerful wright R-2600 engine. Perhaps its most distinctive feature was its twin boom tail. Grossing out at 35,000 pounds, the B-25 could hit 272 miles per hour when called upon to do so. Though stiff on controls, pilots raved about this ship, including the pilot of the lost Bedford plane, Second Lieutenant Paul M. Pitts. Only 21 years of age, he was from Poteau, Oklahoma.
The other crew members were Second Lieutenant George R. Beninga (survived by his wife, Ruth Beninga) from Marietta, Minnesota.
The gunner was Corporal Peter J. Biscan, a mature 29. His home of record was the All-American City of Chicago, Illinois. He was survived by his brother John Biscan.
Second Lieutenant Hilary S. Blackwell, age 22, was from the stunning region of Santa Monica, California.
Second Lieutenant William McClure, age 22, came from Indianapolis, Indiana, the crossroads of America.
Together they were tasked to fly a triangular flight path originating from Shaw Army Air Force Base in Columbia, South Carolina. By cover of darkness, they flew out of Shaw to the Northeast, later a Southwest leg was to be followed by a Southeast heading to home plate on instruments. The estimated flight time was three hours and ten minutes. After numerous checks and a preflight briefing, they took to the air at 1700 hours (5 p.m.), never to return.
The training flights were not without danger. A war was going on and training time was of the essence. Accidents and near accidents were most common. It wasn't unusual for aircraft to be forced down just about anywhere. In a real pinch, a golf course could serve as a prized emergency landing field, so too, roads and farmer's fields.
Young lives were snuffed out by the demands of piloting high performance aircraft. 100 octane aviation fuel made for spectacular fireballs on impact. But the shared rational mindset was that it would happen to someone else. The enemy was not yet present, but the element of danger was.
Loosing close friends in their twenties was always a blow. Death meant that you never come back. A two front war demanded that a period of mourning would have to come later, if at all. The war effort was a total thing in and out of the theater of operations.
On the evening of February 2, 1943 the war landed rudely on our doorstep. At approximately 9 p.m. Lt. Pitt's B-25 pierced the darkness over Bedford. Heading from the south, the distinctive silhouette of his bomber filled the sky. It was illuminated by its exterior marking beacons, and landing lights imaging forward from the wings. The interior lights were also all on. The greenhouse nose canopy was a radiant ball of light in the surrounding darkness. To witnesses on the ground, the massive wright engines sounded out of synchronization. The plane was in trouble. The pilots wheeled their long bomber over our town at a low altitude just skirting over the trees. Visibility in the higher elevations, the Peaks of Otter, was obscured by dense fog. The plane continued to circle and flew onward in a northeasterly direction. Altitude was everything. An extra 500 feet would have meant a safe passage across the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it was not to be. The plane did not clear the mountain. Tree tops were severed by the propellers. A violent impact followed. Unyielding, Sharp Top claimed its first casualties from the air.
Thunderous explosions reverberated from the snow and ice capped mountain. The wreckage then erupted into flames, dark smoke marking a fresh aerial grave.
First on the scene were the local mountain people. Those drawn by a sincere desire to help, along with the curious, came in droves. There would be no one to save that evening, for the crew was killed near instantly. It was a grizzly scene. The bodies of the crew were badly disfigured, and burned. One airmen was decapitated, his head never to be found. Scattered decks of playing cards blanketed the steep slope. And partially opened parachutes were reported on the scene, as well.
During that evening and following morning, there were some noble efforts made by local natives. Scaling the Peaks of Otter in the dead of winter is an admirable feat.
Finally the litter bearers came. The remains were carried with great difficulty 5 1/2 miles below to Route 43. It was a cruel and thankless job. The powerful odor of burned flesh and hair filled their nostrils.
Guards were not posted until Friday, the 5th of February, their services being suspended the following Monday evening. During this period, a Captain Murray B. Hall investigated the crash. There were no in flight recorder to capture the pilot's last desperate words, no modern day radar to warn of the impending strike, just bad luck. Quite literally they flew into harms way by the blind hand of fate.
The passing years have marched relentlessly forward. We may never know exactly what happened that night, but we need to recognize their loss. Their memory has tugged hard upon my conscience. Finally, may their sacrifice be made known. Will they remain forever the lost airmen of Bedford? Make your voice heard. Memorial Day will have but little meaning if we again pass them by.
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"Jeff" Clemens is the pastor of New Prospect Church, 5849 Sheep Creek Road, Bedford, VA. 24523. New Prospect is located at the base of Sharp Top Mountain less than a mile (as the crow flies) from the crash scene. Many of Jeff's observations were based on actual accounts by members of the rescue party or their relatives. Pastor "Jeff" gave permission to publish his article which originally appeared in a supplement to a local newspaper (The Bedford Bulletin) in 1996. His plea for a Memorial apparently fell on deaf ears! The crash site remains unmarked and the Airmen still "officially" Forgotten.