You’ll notice we’ve been on a bit of a World War II tear lately. Some of you might have seen our Memorial Day package on “The Forgotten 14,” airmen who crashed at Morrison Field — now Palm Beach International Airport — in December 1943. Among those who wrote in about the story was Boca Raton Fire-Rescue Fire Chief Thomas R. Wood. In his May/June department newsletter, he tells of that city’s own tragedy, at the Boca Raton Army Air Field, now site of Florida Atlantic University and the Boca Raton Airport. Nine men died on May 12, 1944, when a B-34 crashed on the runway during takeoff for a routine radar training mission:
Pilot: First Lt. William H. Carson 23, South Carolina. Student radar operators: First Lt. Jacob M. Buie, 22, Florida; First Lt. Thomas A. Lamont, 27, New York; First Lt. John J. Lominac, 25, North Carolina; First Lt. Benjamin P. Sibley, 27, Massachusetts. Radio operator: Staff Sergeant Frank L. Bursaw, 31, Missouri. Radar instructor: Sergeant John S. Safieko, 25, Wisconsin. Student engineer: PFC Norman R. Steiner, 20, New York. Aerial engineer: Private Robert E. Locke, 22, Ohio.
Excerpts from Woods’ report:
“The B-34 was taking off in an easterly direction from the west end of the east/west runway. It had traveled 3,400 feet east and lifted off at an altitude of about 35 feet when it veered left and hit the ground, cart-wheeling. It stopped upside down and in flames.
“The final resting place of the aircraft fuselage was 800 feet east of the east end of the east/west runway and 200 feet north of that point. By my calculations, the aircraft came to rest at what today is the intersection of North University Drive and FAU Boulevard on the Florida Atlantic University campus.
“There was an ambulance and crash unit shed at the airfield, but no permanent fire stations on the flight line in May 1944. As a result, most of the airfield firefighting coverage at the shed was done by rotating crews from the structural fire stations in six-hour blocks.
The only survivor, Buie, “gave no indication as to the cause of the crash, as he was only concerned for his comrades still inside the wrecked burning aircraft. Buie died at 2:20 p.m. at the base hospital.”
Woods writes the board concluded the plane’s left engine lost power, possibly because of a fuel pump failure.