Oh it was terrible, parts of the plane hanging on bushes and in the wooded areas. Legs here and arms there, it was awful. I was writing for the Tribune at the time, but I didn’t write about that though. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”Imogene (Drake) Lawrence
BATTLEGROUND – If you drive along Highway 157 until you reach mile marker 19, you will see eight small white wooden crosses with an Alabama historical marker at the end. For those who have stopped to read it, you know what awful tragedy happened there. For those who haven’t stopped to read it, here’s what it says:
Eight U.S. Army Air Corps officers and enlisted men were killed one-fourth mile east of here near the Roundtop Community on Sunday, April 9, 1944, at 2:20 p.m. when their B-26C Martin Marauder bomber, nicknamed the “Katy-Did”, crashed nose-down, at full throttle, and exploded. The warplane was on an official flight from Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee when it encountered a severe thunderstorm. Witnesses reported that the plane reappeared from the heavy storm clouds upside down before crashing.
The victims were: Col. Lucius B. Manning, base commander, Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia; Capt. Howard L. Hardy, pilot, La Harpe, Kansas; Capt. Arthur J. Gratis, co-pilot, Seattle, Washington; Sgt. John W. Haney, engineer, Buffalo, New York; Pvt. Matthew J. Georghegan, mechanic, Bronx, New York; Pvt. John H. Bailey, radio man, Trenton, New Jersey; Sgt. James R. Smith, St. Maire, Idaho; 1st Lt. Hugh Williams, Jr., Megehee, Arkansas.
Alabama Tourism Department 2014
There are very few people still around that remember this terrible accident. Those who were there were changed forever. In a recent interview with Mrs. Imogene (Drake) Lawrence, she took me back to that day so long ago. Lawrence was a writer for The Cullman Tribune at the time, she wrote about the happenings in the north Vinemont area. Even though she was a news reporter back then, this is one event she never wrote about.
“My dad had a time keeping us hoeing in the fields, we liked to stop and watch the airplanes,” Lawrence chuckled. “They would come in lines. I remember there were big old bombers and lots of other planes that would fly over going from one air base to another. We’d all stop hoeing and watch them. Then they got those little jets, what do you call them? Well anyway, those Army jets would just fly by. There would be probably 15 or 20 of them all at once. The air would just be full of them around here.
“I remember sitting out in our front yard and saw a big old bomber; it wasn’t nothing to see them flying by,” she continued. “I was sitting out that evening; it was dark and lonesome. I sat watching that plane, it went over our house and out towards Battleground and crashed. I saw it before it went down, and when it fell, you’d never heard such a racket! I ran inside and told my mother, ‘That airplane fell over yonder!’”
She sat for a moment, thinking. Her whole personality saddened as she thought about it. Clearly she remembered it like it was yesterday.
“I was told the plane left from Valdosta, Georgia, but I’m not sure. It came from that direction anyway. We went over there the next day and it had killed a whole bunch of soldier boys. Oh it was terrible, parts of the plane hanging on bushes and in the wooded areas. Legs here and arms there, it was awful. I was writing for The Tribune at the time, but I didn’t write about that though. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”
It wasn’t until 70 years later when a memorial to the fallen “soldier boys” was placed near the old crash site about a half-mile from where the plane went down. It was on August 16, 2014 that the Cullman Veterans of Foreign Wars post conducted a memorial and the marker was dedicated in a special ceremony. The memorial is actually located at the foot of Battleground Mountain in Morgan County off Highway 157. Families of the service members that were killed in the crash were among those attending. They were escorted by Legion Riders from the American Legion Post 15 in Decatur and members of the Patriot Guard Riders.
If you are ever in the area, you should stop and pay your respects to the eight fallen soldiers. It’s a very sobering feeling to stand in such a place, but it is also something you will never forget.
