B-29 Super Fortress, U.S. Army Air-Corps, 1944

By Beverly Clinkingbeard

Seventy-eight years ago, across the Midwest, it was a crispy, autumn day. The year was 1944. Short of a few days, it was three years since Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The war was daily news and on everyone’s mind, for there were few families untouched, as almost everyone – family and/or friend – knew someone in uniform serving in a faraway place.

Herington Army Air Field, 70 miles north of Topeka, Kansas, had hastily been established as a training place for the B-17 Flying Fortress. Following the development of the B-29 Super Fortress, it was a staging field preparatory to overseas duty.  “Working 24/7, the 274th AAF Base (Army Air-Corp Field) processed an average of nine combat crews a day.” The B-29 was built by Boeing at a cost of $500,000 per plane in Wichita, Kansas.

By 1944, the main islands of the Philippines were liberated and American forces had secured the Marianna Islands, which included Saipan. It had cost dearly in that 16,525 Americans were killed or wounded. However, with the islands now in the possession of the USA, and the development of the B-29 Super Fortress Bomber, it was possible to take the war into Tokyo and other areas of Japan.

On November 16, 1944, Capt. Walter L. Geyer and Co-Pilot C.B. Uber were assigned a new B-29 Flying Fortress, and with a crew of eleven, were in training for the next assignment. The crew included the Captain, Co-pilot, Bombardier/Navigator, Navigator for Radar, Flight Engineer, Radio Operator, Central Fire Control Specialist Gunner, and three Specialist Gunners. The flight for the 16th was continued training or “shake-down” flight for the newly formed crew with a new airplane.

Meanwhile, farmers on the east side of Atchison County were shucking corn and tending to farm duties. It wasn’t unusual to hear the drone of aircraft, however, this particular afternoon the drone of an aircraft was unusual. Those that witnessed the flight were astonished to see black smoke curling from a big plane.

According to the news of the day, the crew parachuted to safety west of the Missouri River in Nebraska. The pilot and co-pilot parachuted to safety – one, floating to earth near Olin Barnes. He was shucking corn. It is reputed the airman asked Mr. Barnes, “Did you see where my plane landed?”  They need only look south (three to four miles) and see black smoke.  On impact the plane exploded in a feed lot on Rudolph “Babs” Staples’ farm and scattered debris across the road, on a farm operated by C.C. Dunfee and owned by Mrs. H.K. Noel, eight miles east of Tarkio and approximately the same west from Burlington Junction, Missouri, along Missouri Highway 4, now Highway 136.  Outbuildings were burned with contents of hay and grain, as were cattle and hogs, and a flock of 150 hens. Some cattle, not killed outright, had to be put down due to burns and blindness. The area was scorched and black – the farm house spared.

News of the crash sped like wildfire and sightseers quickly arrived. The late Claire Lane was attending Blanchard High School. He remembered skipping school, and with his car loaded of classmates, hurried to the crash site. They were stunned by the devastation. It brought the war from afar close to home.

An eye-witness remembers her family joined other bystanders. “If my mother would have realized how devastating the scene was, I doubt that we would have gone. It was a mess. Dead pigs and cattle lay with their legs outstretched, featherless chickens moved about not knowing where to go or how to be a chicken. A corn crib was still standing and there were men crouching with large instruments. My mother said they were photographers. Army personnel had arrived shortly after the crash. Big pieces of metal parts lay about and were smoking. My father said they were engines and that the airplane had four of them. Pieces of metal were everywhere. We returned home sobered by what we’d seen with a feeling of relief that no one was killed and that the airmen had parachuted to safety. Now I better understood what war was like for helpless innocent people caught in its midst. I had a better, though childish, perception of the war news.”

It was reported that six truck-loads of wreckage were hauled away and 30 boys from Tarkio High School volunteered for the massive job of looking for plane parts and pieces in pastures and cornfields. As it was a novelty, many folks picked up pieces as souvenirs. Later, the government requested all pieces be returned that they might analyze and reconstruct the accident. Points of return were Tarkio Police Officer Paul Phillips, Atchison County Sheriff Harry Clement, or State Patrol at Maryville, Missouri.

What was next for the crew? Records show that by January 1945, Major Walter L. Geyer was assigned to the 73rd Bomb Wing now stationed at Saipan, and with his crew, a part of a bombing campaign that involved 3,500 encounters from and against Japanese forces. Of this, “Major Walter L. Geyer of Hena, AR, now a veteran of 35 B-29 missions, summed up the average crewman’s opinion of the mission. ‘Over the target I clearly remember saying to myself as we ploughed through fighters and flak, If I ever get through this one, I’m through flying,’ and at that moment I really meant it.’”  That Capt. Geyer was quoted in remembrance of the blitz bombing of Japan is surely indicator that he and his crew survived the many “aerial dogfights” and artillery fire directed at the bombers.

Herington AAF was closed following the war and transferred to the City of Herington. It is used as a local municipal airport with evidences of a WWII airport.

From a passing vehicle on Highway 136 in Atchison County, Missouri, there is no evidence that it was once the site of a B-29 Bomber crash. Clean-up, along with Mother Nature’s overgrowth, has healed the scars. Apparently, due to communication and military secrecy at the time, not all newspapers carried the story. But, just maybe, this many years later, it is good to remember and appreciate the sacrifice made by our parents and grandparents in defending our nation and a plane crash that brought the war closer to home here in Atchison County.

’Til next time.