Mayday Over Wichita
Page 13
3. Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Public Law 88-408, 88th Congress, August 7, 1964. General Records of the United States Government. Record Group 11. National Archives.
4. Steve Larsen, Heritage and Legacy: A Brief History of the 22d Air Refueling Wing and McConnell Air Force Base (Office of History 22d Air Refueling Wing, 2006), 16.
5. Steven L. McFarland, A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force, Air Force History and Museums Programs (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical Information Center, 1997), 59–61.
6. Larsen, Heritage and Legacy, 4.
7. James L. Crowder, Oklahoma Historical Society, Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/C/CL017.html (accessed January 21, 2012).
8. “SAC Operations Order 83-65 (Lucky Number),” September 11, 1964, Air Force Report of Collateral Investigation Board, KC-135 A 57-1442, January 16, 1965 (Wichita, Kansas), Vol. II, Appendix B, quoted in Cornelius P. Cotter’s Jet Tanker Crash: Urban Response to Military Disaster (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1968), 2.
9. Wichita Eagle, “Death Toll Climbs to 30 in Jet Tanker Crash in City,” January 18, 1965, 1; Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 155.
10. Jeanine Widseth, interview with author, January 26, 2013.
11. Jon Roe, “Report Reveals Repeated Delays of KC-135 Flight,” Wichita Beacon, October 3, 1965.
12. Widseth interview.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Letter from James K. Musshel to Mr. and Mrs. Henri J. Kenenski, January 18, 1965.
18. Letter written by Daniel E. Kenenski, May 16, 1964.
19. Irene Hubar (Kenenski), telephone interview with author, January 16, 2013.
20. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Miami Youth Among Crewmen Killed in Crash,” January 17, 1965.
21. Wichita Beacon, January 21, 1965.
22. Roe, “Report Reveals,” Wichita Beacon, October 3, 1965.
CHAPTER 2
23. Air Force Report, II, 7, 120, Testimony of Captain Sidney S. Buswell, tanker scheduler, 70th Bomb Wing, quoted in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 5.
24. Ibid.
25. Steve Sells, “KC-135A Jet Has Record of Reliability,” Wichita Beacon, January 17, 1965.
26. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
27. Eagle, “Air Force Delve for Cause of Crash,” January 19, 1965.
28. Air Force Report, II, 7, 84–87, Testimony of Captain Sidney S. Buswell, tanker scheduler, 70th Bomb Wing, quoted in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 3; Widseth interview.
29. Wichita Eagle, January 13, 1965.
30. Ibid., January 14, 1965.
31. Ibid.
32. USAF Technical Sergeant Brandon Blodgett, interview with author, November 21, 2012.
33. Air Force Report, II, 7, Testimony of Chief Master Sergeant R.H. Grant, the noncommissioned officer in charge, Tanker Flight Line Section, 70th Organizational Maintenance Squadron, Clinton-Sherman AFB, Oklahoma, quoted in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 3.
34. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 5.
35. Second Air Force Accident/Incident Report, “History of Flight 57-1442,” 1965, 1; “Maintenance Group Report,” 9.
36. Ibid., “Transcript of Tape Between McConnell Tower and Aircraft, Raggy 42.”
37. Martin Van Creveld, The Age of Air Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2011). See 191–213 for development of the jet engine in the U.S. Air Force.
38. National Research Council, Committee on Analysis of Air Force Engine Efficiency Improvement Options for Large, Non-fighter Aircraft, National Research Council, Improving the Efficiency of Engines for Large Non-fighter Aircraft (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2007), 50.
39. Sells, “KC-135A.”
40. Air Force Report, I, 133A-34, quoted in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 5.
41. Ibid., 5.
42. Second Air Force Accident/Incident Investigation Report, “Crash Time Information: KC-135 (Raggy-42),” January 28, 1965 (emphasis added).
CHAPTER 3
43. Ed Knowles, “Eye Witnesses Relate Tragic Story,” Topeka Capital Journal, January 17, 1965. Ms. Williams lived diagonally across the intersection of 20th and Piatt and two houses down from where the plane fell.
44. Bill Hirschman, “Day Will Not Die for Those Who Watched in Horror,” Eagle, January 16, 1985.
45. Ibid.
46. Sonya House, interview with author, November 29, 2012.
47. Tim Kidd, “Witnesses Recall It as a Fiery Hell,” Wichita Beacon, January 16, 1975.
48. Larry McDonough, telephone interview with author, January 18, 2013.
49. Ibid.
50. Earl Tanner, telephone interview with author, March 4, 2013.
51. Connie Close, “Witnesses Tell Versions of Tragedy,” Wichita Eagle, January 17, 1965.
52. Knowles, “Eye Witnesses.”
53. Victor Daniels, interview with author, November 24, 2012.
54. Knowles, “Eye Witnesses.”
55. Wichita Sunday Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965; Kathy Sipult, “After 5 Years, Cold Day of Fiery Death Is Vivid,” Wichita Eagle, January 16, 1970.
56. Wichita Eagle, January 15, 1995.
57. Tim Brazil, “Whole Ground on Fire,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
58. Jim Lapham, “Escape Is Hopeless,” Kansas City Star, January 17, 1965.
59. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 103.
60. Ibid., 19.
61. Brazil, “Whole Ground on Fire,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
62. Wichita Eagle, “Remember,” January 22, 1996.
CHAPTER 4
63. Ellen Anderson, “Faith, Their Victory,” 1965. Mrs. Anderson was a survivor of the crash and sent this poem to the families of the crewmen. It was provided to the author by Irene Hubar.
64. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Time Can’t Erase Bad Memories,” January 16, 1985.
65. Wichita Beacon, February 15, 1965.
66. Wichita Eagle, January 15, 1995; Bob Linder, “Empty Soap Box Spared Her Life” Wichita Eagle, January 16, 1967.
67. Clarence William Walker, interview, March 1969, Shriver Papers.
68. Frank H. Carpenter and Leonard H. Wesley Jr., “Community Response to Tragedy: A Case Study of the Air Crash of January 16, 1965 in Wichita, Kansas,” Department of Political Science, Wichita State University, May 21, 1965, University of Delaware, Disaster Research Center Library, 8.
69. Ibid.
70. Wichita Beacon, February 15, 1965.
71. Ibid., January 16, 1985; Brazil, “Whole Ground on Fire.”
72. Wichita Eagle, January 15, 1995.
73. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Dash Through Blazing Grass to Escape Death,” January 18, 1965.
74. John Husar, “Rush of Terror Greets Reporter,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
75. Connie Close, “Minister at Crash Tells of Child Burning to Death,” Wichita Eagle, January 18, 1965.
76. Wichita Beacon, February 15, 1965.
77. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Time Can’t Erase Bad Memories,” January 16, 1985.
78. Ibid.
79. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 24, 1965.
80. Wichita Beacon, February 15, 1965.
81. House interview.
82. Ibid.
83. Wichita Eagle, “Dash Through Blazing Grass To Escape Death,”January 17, 1965.
84. Wichita Beacon, January 16, 1985.
85. Wichita Fire Department Official Report, January 16, 1965, Kansas Firefighters’ Museum Archives.
86. Wichita Beacon, February 15, 1965.
CHAPTER 5
87. Fire Chief Tom McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky Over Wichita,” Disaster Research Center Library, University of Delaware, 1.
88. Video footage by KAKE News, January 16, 1965, tape #FO907, box #F050, Special Collections, Ablah Library, Wichita State University; Capital Journal, January 17, 1965.
89. Retired Deputy Fire Chief Ear
l Tanner, telephone interview with author, March 7, 2013.
90. Dan Garrity and Gary Lester, “Depression Made Firemen of McGaughey,” Wichita Eagle, November 22, 1968.
91. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 14.
92. McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky,” 1.
93. House interview.
94. McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky,” 3.
95. Ibid., 4.
96. Ibid., 5. There is a one minute discrepancy here with the time of 9:30 a.m. and 9:31 a.m. Although the official WFD report notes the crash time at 9:30 a.m., the air force and the media reported 9:31 a.m. as the official crash time of Raggy 42.
97. Ibid., 4.
98. Tanner interview.
99. McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky,” 4.
100. Ibid., 3–4.
101. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 27–28.
102. Ibid., 19.
103. McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky,” 1.
104. Ibid., 5.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid., 6.
108. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 31.
109. Ibid., 34–35.
110. Wichita Fire Department Official Report, January 16, 1965, Kansas Firefighters’ Museum Archives.
111. James Hudson, “Utility Service Restored,” Wichita Eagle, January 17, 1965.
112. Topeka Capital Journal, January 17, 1965; February 14, 1965.
113. McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky,” 10–11.
114. Wichita Eagle, January 17, 1965, cited 1.5 million gallons of water.
CHAPTER 6
115. Wichita Beacon, January 19, 1965. Note that the Beacon originally cited twenty-five thousand gallons of jet fuel, but the correct amount was approximately thirty-one thousand.
116. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air (reprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983).
117. Ibid., 30.
118. John Shy “Jomini,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 182.
119. Ibid., 182.
120. Karl Lautenschläger, “Controlling Military Technology,” Ethics 95, no. 3, Special Issue: Symposium on Ethics and Nuclear Deterrence (April 1985), http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381045 (accessed October 11, 2012), 697.
121. Walton S. Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996), 65.
122. Jeremy J. Stone, “Bomber Disarmament,” World Politics 17, no. 1 (October 1964), http://www.jstor.org/stable/2009385 (accessed October 11, 2012), 15.
123. Ibid., 15.
124. Stephen Budiansky, Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas that Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II (New York: Penguin Group, 2004), 354.
125. Walter J. Boyne, Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the United States Air Force, 1947–2007, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 110.
126. Eugene Rodgers, Flying High: The Story of Boeing and the Rise of the Jetliner Industry (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996), 170.
127. Budiansky, Air Power, 354; Richard H. Kohn and Joseph P. Harahan, eds., Strategic Air Warfare, USAF Warrior Studies (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), 105.
128. Boyne, Beyond the Wild Blue, 110.
129. Ibid.
130. Rodgers, Flying High, 170.
131. On this first flight of the Dash 80, however, Johnston couldn’t raise the landing gear or flaps after takeoff because the hydraulic controls on the plane failed to work. The official photo for Time magazine was taken looking down on the Dash 80 in order to avoid this embarrassment. See Rodgers, Flying High, 171–72.
132. Rodgers, Flying High, 175.
133. Bill Gilbert, Air Power: Heroes and Heroism in American Flight Missions, 1916 to Today (New York: Citadel Press, 2003), 251; Boeing, Defense, Space and Security: KC-135 Stratotanker, http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/kc135-strat/index.html (accessed January 12, 2012); American Aviation Historical Society, Boeing KC-135 Celebrates Fifty Years of Service, September 8, 2006, http://www.aahs-online.org/articles/KC-135_turns_50.php (accessed January 12, 2012).
134. Steven L. Rearden, “U.S. Strategic Bombardment Doctrine Since 1945,” in Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment, edited by R. Cargill Hall (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1988), 405, italics mine.
135. Boyne, Beyond the Wild Blue, 110.
136. Boeing, Defense, Space and Security.
137. Rodgers, Flying High, 198.
138. Larsen, Heritage and Legacy, 22.
CHAPTER 7
139. Frank Garofalo, “Two Fliers Tell Vivid Crash Stories,” Wichita Beacon, January 16, 1965.
140. Colonel James Trask Interview, Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 16, 1985.
141. Dale Daugherty, “Explosion Fire Raze 15 Homes,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
142. “Crash Investigation Started In Minutes,” Wichita Beacon, January 19, 1965.
143. Garofalo, “Two Fliers.”
144. Rick Colella, “Overweight Landing? Fuel Jettison? What to Consider,” Aero Magazine (3rd Quarter 2007), http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_3_07/AERO_Q307_article3.pdf (accessed June 3, 2012).
145. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 7.
146. General Murray M. Bywater, interview with KAKE News, January 17, 1965, FO907, Special Collections, Ablah Library, Wichita State University.
147. Garofalo, “Two Fliers.”
148. Ibid.
149. Testimony of Colonel Tom Murphy, Director of Safety for the 2nd Air Force, Kansas City Star, January 17, 1965.
150. Wichita Eagle, January 17, 1965.
151. Garofalo, “Two Fliers.”
152. Wichita Beacon, January 16, 1965.
153. Ibid.
154. Kansas City Star, January 17, 1965.
155. Capital Journal, January 17, 1965.
156. Technical Sergeant Jason Schaap, “Air Force Pulls Parachutes from KC-135s,” March 4, 2008, http://www.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123087912 (accessed July 23, 2012).
157. Topeka Capital Journal, January 17, 1965.
158. Flight Safety Foundation, Accident Description, http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19680730-0 (accessed July 23, 2012).
159. Joseph Heywood, Covered Waters: Tempests of a Nomadic Trouter (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2003), 45. At the time of Heywood’s writing in 1970 the KC-135 had been in service for thirteen years.
160. Air Force Report, Vol. II, Exhibit X, in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 11.
CHAPTER 8
161. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Time Can’t Erase Bad Memories,” January 16, 1985.
162. John Husar, “Rush of Terror Greets Reporter,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
163. Topeka Capital Journal, “Asked to Move,” January 17, 1965.
164. Wichita Eagle, January 15, 1995.
165. Deputy Chief Robert Simpson interview in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 27.
166. Captain Raymond L. Wert interview in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 76.
167. Captain Lawrence Black interview in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 25; Simpson, Wert and Black interviews are on audio recordings at the Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware.
168. Topeka Capital Journal, January 17, 1965.
169. Captain Lawrence Black interview in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 24.
170. Tanner interview.
171. Topeka Capital Journal, January 17, 1965.
172. John Husar article, Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 16, 1985.
173. Ibid.
174. Ibid.
175. Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 37.
176. Forrest Hintz, “2 Agencies Give Ample Relief Goods,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
177. Ibid.
178. Captain Raymond Wert of the Salvation Army, quoted in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 79–80.
179. Husar article.
180. Ibid
.
181. McGaughey, “Fire from the Sky,” 4.
182. Connie Close article, Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 16, 1985.
CHAPTER 9
183. Interview with Rev. Joseph E. Mason, quoted in Jet Tanker Crash, 100.
184. Wichita Eagle, Kansas City Star and Topeka Capital Journal, January 17, 1965.
185. Wichita Eagle, “Probers Start Work,” January 18, 1965.
186. Wichita Eagle, “Air Force Probes Crash Site Debris,” January 18, 1965.
187. Wichita Eagle, “Loss At Jet Crash Scene Estimated At 3.5 Million,” January 24, 1965.
188. Wichita Eagle, “Air Force Probes Crash Site Debris,” January 18, 1965.
189. Wichita Eagle, “Air Force Delve for Cause of Crash,” January 19, 1965.
190. Richard Jackson interview with Leonard Wesley and Frank Carpenter on May 5, 1965, quoted in Cotter, Jet Tanker Crash, 107.
191. Lester Rosen to Cornelius P. Cotter, November 15, 1965, MS7701, Box 9, Garner Shriver Papers, Special Collections, Ablah Library, Wichita State University.
192. Arnold L. Parr, “A Brief View of the Adequacy and Inadequacy of Disaster Plans and Preparations in Ten Community Crises” (Ohio State University, Department of Sociology, June 1969), Disaster Research Center, 5.
193. Wichita Eagle, “Memories of Air Tragedy Recounted,” January 16, 1967.
194. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Life Goes on Bravely in Plane Crash Area,” January 17, 1965.
195. Ibid.
196. Wichita Eagle, “Rescue Units Draw Praise,” January 18, 1965.
197. Ibid.
198. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Life Goes on Bravely”; Garofalo, “Two Fliers.”
199. Ibid.
200. Wichita Eagle, “Promise of Finished Homes Given to Displaced Persons,” January 18, 1965.
201. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Life Goes On Bravely”; Garofalo, “Two Fliers.”
202. Topeka Capital Journal, “Homes Opened,” January 17, 1965.
203. Forrest Hintz, “2 Agencies Give Ample Relief Goods,” Wichita Eagle and Beacon, January 17, 1965.
204. Wichita Eagle and Beacon, “Life Goes on Bravely”; Garofalo, “Two Fliers.”
205. Wichita Eagle, “Rescue Units Draw Praise,” January 18, 1965.
CHAPTER 10
206. Wichita Beacon, “Fair Housing law needed,” July 8, 1967.
207. Wichita Beacon, “Two Groups Have Common Goal but Differ,” July 14, 1967.