B-29 HITS PEAK, 12 ABOARD KILLED
Gatlinburg, Tenn., June 12. (AP) – An Army 3d Air Force B-29 Superfortress crashed into a towering peak in the rugged Great Smoky mountains national park, near the Tennessee-North Carolina line, killing the 12 men aboard.
Park Superintendent Blair Ross, who went to the scene of the crash, said the wreckage of the huge craft was strewn over “an acre or more of ground.”
The huge craft, enroute from Chicago to MacDill Field, Fla., on a night navigational flight, was last reported over Knoxville, about 45 miles northeast of here, at 2:16 a.m.
The bodies of the 12 airmen were all burned or badly crushed and have been moved to mortuaries at Sevierville and Maryville, Ross reported.
The superintendent said nothing unusual had been reported about the weather in the park last night or early this morning, but he pointed out that fogs and low clouds were frequent in this section.
Source: Charleston Gazette, Charleston, West Virginia, Thursday, June 13, 1946
BETTENDORF FLIER IS KILLED
BETTENDORF, Ia. – Sgt. Charles E. Bausch, 20, of Bettendorf, killed in a B-29 superfortress crash near Gatlinburg, Tenn., yesterday, was due to be discharged tomorrow, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Lybeck revealed today.
A B-29 radio operator, Bausch, who entered the Army in January, 1944, was on his last flight in service when he lost his life.
Source: Mount Pleasant News, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, Thursday, June 13, 1946
