Blogging Along the Brandywine: ‘I was there’

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Wreckage from a bomber that crashed in West Chester.

May 7, 1944, had been a stormy day. That Sunday afternoon around 4:40 p.m., and like boys, oblivious to the rain, 7-year-old Larry Wood of West Chester was outside his home in the quiet tree-lined streets of the historic borough playing with his toy rifle.

In spring 1944, WW II was still raging in Europe and Japan, and people like Chadds Ford’s 62-year-old Chris Sanderson were taking their posts atop the Farmers and Mechanics Building at the corner of Market and High Streets in West Chester, searching the sky for enemy bombers. Built in 1907, the six-story F and M building was considered a skyscraper, and spotters like Sanderson had been trained in enemy plane identification.

A few blocks south, young Larry raised his toy rifle as a U.S. Army Air Corps B-25 Mitchell bomber on a training mission out of Newark, N.J., growled overhead in the stormy skies. In the mind of the 7-year-old boy, it was an enemy bomber and Larry was going to save West Chester.

“Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat” you could hear him shout.

Seconds later, the B-25’s engine went silent and the massive bomber with a crew of seven started to spiral down. One can only imagine the suspension of belief that happened in the boy’s mind at that moment. Suddenly, the earth shook and smoke arose from just north of town.

Larry jumped in his dad’s car, and they drove on High Street following the smoke to the Oaklands Cemetery just outside of town, where a large crowd was already assembling. Larry’s dad told him to stay by the car while he checked the scene.

The carnage was unimaginable. The bomber had caught fire before it crashed into the trees, causing a crater almost ten feet deep and starting numerous fires. Two of the airmen had tried to parachute out before the crash. Their mangled bodies were in the trees 200 yards away. Others in the now broken and burning plane were scattered in the cemetery, burned beyond recognition. Larry and his dad got back into their car just as West Chester’s Good Will Fire Company arrived, now thwarted by gathering crowds. As they were driving away, they motioned to an arriving Boy Scout troop to turn back from the horror.

The young men who lost their lives 79 years ago were: 2nd Lt. Herman H. Haas Jr., 2nd Lt. William C. Bethel, Sgt. Sylvio W. Pollender, Sgt. John T. Donahue and passengers SSgt. Joseph Tucek, Sgt. George B. Allen, and Pvt. Edward P. Geoghegan Jr.

A large granite monument now stands in the cemetery to their memory.

Many years ago, I was taking a tour of the Oaklands Cemetery with the late, great Chester County historian, Paul Rodebaugh. He pointed to the spot where the plane crashed.

“It was right there, beyond the trees,”  he said pointing towards North New Street. “They’re building houses there now,” he added.

In June 2019, I was serving as a guide at the Sanderson Museum. Founding member and the esteemed Chester County Judge, Lawrence E. “Larry” Wood, retired (yes) had stopped by. In the mid-1960s he had written Chris Sanderson’s will.

He pointed to a small artifact on the wall of the museum. A gnarled and burnt strip of numbers from a gauge of the B-25 bomber that had crashed. Plane spotter Chris Sanderson had picked it up for his growing museum collection.

Judge Wood looked at me and said, “I was there.”

About Sally Denk Hoey

Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”

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