Page 9 - Discover Winter 2023
P. 9
TRAGEDY
On SharpTop
By Charles Alexander
It may not surprise anyone that we and Raleigh, NC, then turn around at
lost over 7000 military aircraft during Lynchburg, head toward Greensboro,
World War II. What may raise an and then back to Columbia. It should
eyebrow or two is that they were all lost have taken them about 3 hours to
within our own borders during training complete the mission.
exercises, and with them, some 15,000
Unfortunately, something went wrong.
men.
Sometime after flying over Raleigh, the
One of them is closer than you aircraft went about 25 miles off course,
may realize. On the night of February and was seen flying over Bedford. Local
2, 1943, five U.S. Airmen were on a residents reported hearing the plane
routine night training mission in a B-25 flying at an unusually low altitude, its
Mitchell bomber. The mission involved engines roaring loudly. All witnesses
navigation under visual flight conditions. agreed that the engines appeared to be
The nature of the exercise required flying running normally, and that the B-25
at a very low level, in order for the crew was flying low on a straight course for
to be able to use landmarks as a guide. the mountains. No doubt the wartime
blackout restrictions added to the
The youngest member of the crew,
challenges of flying low at night time.
21- year-old 2Lt Paul Pitt, was the
aircraft commander, with over 112 The crew may have been able to
hours of flight time in the B-25. He had discover their predicament were it
earned his instrument rating a month not for a dense fog that obscured the
earlier. They were assigned a flight plan mountain ahead from their view. Not
that would take them from their base realizing that they were off course and
in Columbia, SC, over Florence, SC, not over Lynchburg, they continued
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