On a winter day several years ago, I was hiking on a steep, remote mountainside not far from Roanoke when I came upon the wreckage of a fairly large aircraft. It was obviously a military plane because it was painted olive drab and had yellow numbers painted on one of the tail sections. I became curious and after asking several persons I found that there was a World War 2 Army bomber that was known to have crashed there in 1943. I went to the library and started a search of The Roanoke World News and found the report dated February third, 1943. A subsequent search on the Internet revealed a complete accident report done by the U.S. Army Air Force.

The aircraft was a B25D, basically the same type plane made famous by General Dolittle in the 1942 Tokyo raid flown from an aircraft carrier. There were five crewmen aboard. They were second Lieutenant Paul Pitts, pilot, second Lieutenant William McClure, co-pilot, second Lieutenant George Beninga, bombardier, second Lieutenant Hilary Blackwell, navigator, and Corporal Peter Biscan, engineer. They were from Oklahoma, Indiana, South Carolina, California, and Illinois respectively. These men were from 21 to 29 years of age and were performing a night navigation training mission which was supposed to be a flight of a little over three hours in duration.

Their planned route was from their base in Columbia, S.C. to Florence, Raleigh, Lynchburg, and back to Columbia via Greensboro. Their last reported position was over Raleigh at 8:58 p.m. Strangely, the plane was cleared to fly at 3000 feet when there was a 4000 foot mountain in the near vicinity of the flight path. This had tragic results, as at approximately 9:40 p.m. the B25 Mitchell flew straight into the side of this mountain, with fatal results to the entire crew.

The loss of this plane and crew, belonging to the 376th bombardment squadron (medium), of the 309th bomb group of the 3rd Air Force resulted in the change of some flight rules for missions that made flying at night a much safer practice than before. I began to realize from reading The Roanoke World News from that year, that this was but one story of one air crew among many that were making the ultimate sacrifice during training in the United States. I have known for many years of the price paid by military personnel in actual combat. Finding this warplane that met it's fiery end on a routine training flight on a cold night in February long before I was born, I have come to understand that military service involves sacrifices and dangers not often recognized.

We in the United States have been lucky to have enjoyed a long running stretch of peace, especially by twentieth century standards. As time passes, the historical lessons of the major world conflicts of this past century seem to become more and more vague. I hope future generations of Americans as well as the government itself will not lose respect or turn their backs on the men and women who defended the freedoms we sometimes take for granted. We will always need people to stand guard and defend the freedoms we enjoy, just as the Army B25 crewmen were doing on the night of February second, 1943.

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Webmaster Notes: Tracy lives in Salem, VA and works for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He is also a U.S. Navy veteran. Tracy gave permission to publish this article which appeared in the Roanoke Times on Veterans day, November 11, 1999.