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DC-3 ...1949... 13 dead...Remember?
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A museum here is now exhibiting the
airplane that flew 15 smokejumpers to a 1949 wildfire where 12 of
them and a forest ranger died, a catastrophe that changed
firefighting and was told in the 1992 bestseller "Young Men and
Fire" by Norman Maclean.
The restored DC-3 on permanent display at the Museum of Mountain
Flying was dedicated Sunday. Among those on hand was 95-year-old
Earl Cooley, who served as the jumpmaster and spotter aboard the
flight to Mann Gulch, along the Missouri River north of Helena.
Eleven men died in the gulch on Aug. 5, 1949, and two others
with severe burns died the next day.
The deadly blaze led the U.S. Forest Service to institute a
number of changes in firefighting practices.
Other than the absence of benches, Cooley said, the plane is the
same as when it transported the jumpers 57 years ago.
"It's good to remember these things so our younger people know
what we did," said Cooley, who climbed into the belly of the plane
Sunday and looked at the cargo area.
The plane, put to fire use after Johnson Flying Service Inc. of
Missoula bought it at a 1946 surplus sale, remained in service
until sold by Johnson in the mid 1970s.
A few years ago, one of the plane's former pilots saw it in
Arkansas, and a plan to return the aircraft to Montana took shape.
In 2001 the plane was bought with $125,000 in donations and flown
to Missoula.
Shined to a high luster, the plane looks better than ever, said
Wally Small, a former smokejumper who jumped from it in 1952-53.
"I'm glad it's here," Small said. "It's a real piece of
history, a real piece of important history."
Doris Johnson was 10 when she saw the plane as her smokejumper
brother, Eldon Diettert, prepared to leave for Mann Gulch. The
departure was on her brother's birthday and the family had taken a
cake to him at the smokejumper center.
"I find it a little sad, but I appreciate it as a memorial,"
Johnson said Sunday as she saw the plane for the second time. "I
just wish my parents could have been here for it."
---
On the Net:
Museum of Mountain Flying: www.museumofmountainflying.org
---
Information from: Missoulian, http://www.missoulian.com
airplane that flew 15 smokejumpers to a 1949 wildfire where 12 of
them and a forest ranger died, a catastrophe that changed
firefighting and was told in the 1992 bestseller "Young Men and
Fire" by Norman Maclean.
The restored DC-3 on permanent display at the Museum of Mountain
Flying was dedicated Sunday. Among those on hand was 95-year-old
Earl Cooley, who served as the jumpmaster and spotter aboard the
flight to Mann Gulch, along the Missouri River north of Helena.
Eleven men died in the gulch on Aug. 5, 1949, and two others
with severe burns died the next day.
The deadly blaze led the U.S. Forest Service to institute a
number of changes in firefighting practices.
Other than the absence of benches, Cooley said, the plane is the
same as when it transported the jumpers 57 years ago.
"It's good to remember these things so our younger people know
what we did," said Cooley, who climbed into the belly of the plane
Sunday and looked at the cargo area.
The plane, put to fire use after Johnson Flying Service Inc. of
Missoula bought it at a 1946 surplus sale, remained in service
until sold by Johnson in the mid 1970s.
A few years ago, one of the plane's former pilots saw it in
Arkansas, and a plan to return the aircraft to Montana took shape.
In 2001 the plane was bought with $125,000 in donations and flown
to Missoula.
Shined to a high luster, the plane looks better than ever, said
Wally Small, a former smokejumper who jumped from it in 1952-53.
"I'm glad it's here," Small said. "It's a real piece of
history, a real piece of important history."
Doris Johnson was 10 when she saw the plane as her smokejumper
brother, Eldon Diettert, prepared to leave for Mann Gulch. The
departure was on her brother's birthday and the family had taken a
cake to him at the smokejumper center.
"I find it a little sad, but I appreciate it as a memorial,"
Johnson said Sunday as she saw the plane for the second time. "I
just wish my parents could have been here for it."
---
On the Net:
Museum of Mountain Flying: www.museumofmountainflying.org
---
Information from: Missoulian, http://www.missoulian.com
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