Evening star., 1944-01-05
|1hreeDieHere
AS Plane Falls
In Southeast
Col. Hale of D. G.
And Two Others
Victims of Crash
(Picture on Page BIZ

Ah1 &C Amy O11lCcIS WcI6 KILLED.
instantly shortly before 8 am.
today when a Beachcraft UC-43
(small transport crashed and
burned in a vacant lot at
Eleventh street and Alabama
avenue Sc, opposite the
grounds of st. Elizabeth's Hos
pital.
The dead were:
1t. Col. r. w. Hale, pilot, 298o
Second street Sc.
Capt. Walter r. Johnson, Chicago,
Ill.
Capt Robert L. Garrard, Gibsonia,
H.
The home station of the men was
Mitchell Field, N. Y. The plane had
just taken off frfom Boiling Field,
cleared for Richmond CVa) Army
Air Base.
Plane Burned Completely.
The plane, which apparently ex-
ploded when it struck in the center
OF the large lot, burned completely
before flremen were able to extin-
guish the blaze. Boiling Field
authorities posted a guard around
the wreckage Immediately and an
nounced later board of Army Air
Forces officers will investigate to de-
termine the cause of the accident.
Col. Hale, %, stopped here last
night to Sc his family. He is sur
vived by his widow, Mrs. Betty E.
Hale, and three sons. Ralph w.
Hale, 7; Robert lottery Hale, 2, and
Frederick Alan Hale, months.
Col. Hale was transferred to
Mitchell Field early last spring. Pre-
viously he was stationed at Boiling
Field and with the Army Air Forces
here. Prior to joining the Air Forces
three years ago, he was employed at
the Interior Department
Native Of Virginia.
A native of Salem. Va, he was a
graduate of the Fork Union Mill
tary Academy. Va, and the Uni
versity of Virginia.
Photographers were forbidden by
Boiling Field officers to take pic
lures of the wreckage. This was
later overruled by the War Depart
ment. But when permission was
granted, most of the wreckage had
been hauled away by an Army SAL
wage crew.
The War department. ruling con-
tended that the crash did not occur
on Government property and the
plane was not of a secret type. The
Boiling Field Public Relations Office
made available to papers several OF
the pictures taken by Army photog-
raphers.
Alvin Davis, 15,' of 1927 Twelfth
street Sc, witnessed the crash while
on his way to the Woodward School.
The plane was going toward Boiling
Field, he said, when suddenly it
turned sharply and then went into
a dive. The motor was dead before
the plane hit and exploded, he said.
Flares Burn Bystander.
Several persons ran from nearby
houses with blankets, but were un-
able to extricate the occupants Of
the plane from the burning wreck
age.
Eugene Brooks, jr. II, whose home
at 32l4 Eleventh street Sc. is across
the street from the crash scene, was
burned on the ankle when three
flares in the plane exploded as he
stood in the lot watching the blaze.
Eugene and his brother, Joe, Is,
were among the first to reach the
wreckage, and their sister, Ann
Marie Brooks, 10, student at I'M
maculate Conception, called the Fire
Department. Joe heard the plane
in the air Immediately before the
crash and said it's motor seemed to
be cutting on and off as though in
trouble.
Paul Miller, 3215 Eleventh place
Sc, was eating in the kitchen of
his home, directly behind the lot,
when he heard the crash. Mr..
Miller said he looked out his window
and saw the ship burning. Then, he
said, he ran to his back yard and
obtained l00-foot garden hose to
shoot water on the wreckage, but
the blaze by that time was too in
tense to permit any one to approach
closely.
Had Anticipated Accident.
Mr.. Miller said he had been ex-
pecting an accident for a long time
because planes from Boiling Field
often cut off their motors and go
into glide over the neighborhood,
which is about a mile and a half
from the field.
Persons living in the neighborhood
of the plane crash were reminded
today of the long-standing COM
plant of Patterson Elementary
School with regard to low-flying
planes as they come and go from
the nearby airfield. Fears had been
expressed for the safety of the
schools 600 pupils.
Belief that the pilot was seeking
to land just before the crash was
expressed by w. E. Andrews of Con-
gress Heights, an employe Of the
War Shipping Administration, who
heard the plane while eh route to
work, but could not see it because
of the heavy fog.
THE pilot made two circles just
over my home, fading of into the
distance each time" Mr.. Andrews
said. Then I saw the sky sud-
denly light up and heard cracking
noise like sort of cap pistol. The
fog gave the explosion a crimson