WEST NANTMEAL — Family members of the lone survivor of a fiery 1943 military plane crash gathered near the crash site for the first time Friday after they were contacted by the township’s Historical Commission earlier this month.
Betty Gillespie, the 90-year-old widow of Sgt. John F. Gillespie, was joined by her four children and their spouses Friday to view the area where her husband’s B-24 bomber went down in December 1943. The crash resulted in the deaths of all 10 other servicemen on board.
Gillespie, who served as one of the plane’s gunners, survived after the B-24 went down near the end of its journey from a military airfield in Oklahoma. He spent six months in military hospitals after the crash, first at the Coatesville VA and later at Valley Forge, to receive treatment for a broken back and severe burns.
Gillespie, who died seven years ago, went on to marry and father four children, all of whom joined their mother on Friday to view the site. In all, his family grew to include nine grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
“He always wondered, ‘why him?” He didn’t know why,” Gillespie’s son, Robert, said Friday.
Robert and his three siblings, John F. Gillespie Jr., Tom Gillespie, and sister Pat Kane, said their father did not talk a lot about the crash, but was happy to when asked about it.
“Every time he told us about it we learned a little more,” John F. Gillespie Jr. said.
John and Betty Gillespie married less than a year after the crash. He never flew in the military again, but he did stay in the service for years after the accident. Years later he took to the air again on commercial flights during family vacations, his sons said.
“I didn’t think they (the military) would take him back, but they did,” Betty Gillespie said.
After meeting township secretary Susan Ward and members of the historical commission at the West Nantmeal Township Building on Friday morning, the Gillespie family traveled just about a mile away to Hedge Road, where the plane went down.
Pat Kane, Gillespie’s daughter, said her father told her that he remembered his body was at least partially consumed by flames after he was thrown from the wreckage, but he was lucky enough to land in an unknown body of water.
With the help of local farmers, the Gillespie family located a small stream near the suspected site of the crash. It was the first time anyone in the Gillespie family visited the site where their father nearly perished. If he had, they noted, none of them would be there.
“There is a reason we’re all here. He always told us that,” Kane said.
Ward said the township and its historical commission hope to mark the crash site with a permanent plaque in the near future.
The following is the list of servicemen who perished in the crash:
- Staff Sergeant Vincent B. McNally - Philadelphia
- Second Lieut. George W. Wilmont, Pilot - Evansville, Indiana
- Second Lieut. Martin Queenth, Navigator - Milford Connecticut
- Technical Sgt. Walther G. Wellbect - West Bend, Wisconsin
- Technical Sgt. Rufus N. Mabley - Fayetteville, North Carolina
- Staff Sgt. Joseph R. Guary - Fall River, Massachusetts
- Sgt Robert E. Hawkins - Hood River Oregon
- Second Lieut. A. Hamilton - Buffalo, New York
- Sgt. Vern A. Vanderline - Detroit, Michigan
- An unidentified Lieutenant
Story and photos: http://www.dailylocal.com
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