Accidents during Training
5/4/44: Today we got indefinite word of a crash out about fifteen miles the other side of Ardmore, so after waiting for more news & not getting any, the Crash Officer decided we’d better go & hunt for it. The Flight Control Tower said a plane had radioed in that a man had been seen to parachute out of a plane which had a motor on fire, & that was all the news we had. So DeKorne, Sgts Sayers & Hunter, Lt. Bootelman (Communications), the Crash Officer & I took off in a command car. We got out to the general location, way out in the country, & ambulances, fire trucks, etc. were all there, but not one could find out a thing. They were starting to go back, but some native told us that someone told him that someone else told him that someone else had seen a plane flying low in such and such a place, so we decided to take a look. It looked like a wild goose chase, & we got onto a horribly muddy road. What a ride – up to a certain point, when we got into a low place where there were foot deep ruts filled with red muddy water. Right in the middle of it we got STUCK. It was about 10:45 then. We had no winch to haul ourselves out, & no shovel. Well we all got covered with thick heavy mud, from head to foot. It was too funny for words, in a way, & for a while we weren’t worried. Then after trying to pry it loose with limbs of trees, boards, etc. we found we had a flat tire on the left rear wheel – up to the axle in mud & with both rear & front axles on the mud, suspending us so that 4 wheel drive didn’t even help.
Well I decided I’d try to find a farmer where we might be able to get a shovel, so I started walking. Only walked about ¼ mile when I found an old shovel with a home-made handle. That shovel saved the day, eventually after a couple of hours of rebuilding the road, filling up the ruts & digging the axles clear. We got free from the mud-hole by 2:15 after a great deal of work, & then got home by 4:30 PM, hungry as bears. The final news was that the whole thing was a false alarm, & someone had been jittery & used an overactive imagination. You should have seen us though.
5/5/44: I’m enclosing a shot of us, stuck in the mud. Pretty good, isn’t it? It is a good thing we had the camera along, to prove that we hadn’t just been taking the day off fishing, as was suggested by certain wisecrackers.
Lts. Mel DeKorne, Jack Bootelm Stuck in the mud.
