Lost Man Flyover
Photo Via Art Kerr
Otis Memorial Park
Click for High resolution
The above photos of Otis Memorial Park and markers by Carl Wenberg
Carl flew on the Connie at McClellan in the late 50s
THE DEATH OF THE GREAT BIRD
April 25th, 1967
Her engines coughed and came to life
As new blood rushed through her wings.
And readied for her routine flight
While the sun slowly settled out of sight.
The sea breeze blew across the field
As the great bird climbed aloft.
To no one has fate revealed
To death this plane is doomed to yield
No other creature roamed the sky,
Above the sea only silence looms,
Save the singing of the engines — and why?
This great bird was doomed to die.
Suddenly her wings were enveloped in flame
As the silence is broken by a deafening roar.
She twisted and turned and frantically strained
But she cannot fight death: she is fatally maimed.
Her engines die and she slowly descended,
Against death she could fight no more,
From this she could not be defended,
To her doom she limply soared
Christopher Cobb
NOTE: This poem was written by Chris Cobb, a twelve-year-old, the evening after he learned of the crash of an Air Force C(121)Radar Picket Plane in which A3C Dennis R. Cole of Westboro, Massachusetts, was killed. The plane crashed off Nantucket Island shortly after taking off on a patrol flight to defend our nation’s North Atlantic frontier, April 25th, 1967.
The poem was sent by the parents of Dennis R. Cole, Mr. & Mrs. Richard Cole to Mrs. Joan Walsh, the wife of A1C William M. Walsh, who also was killed aboard the radar plane. The poem now has been passed on by James P. Walsh, the son of Joan and William Walsh, who was 8 years old when his father died.
The Air Force Magazine article
titled "The Fall of the Warning Stars" has been published in the April
2005 Vol 88. No. 4 Journal of the Air Force Association Air Force Magazine
Article in PDF
http://www.afa.org/magazine/april2005/0405stars.asp
Crash Related Photos of 136 & 549
THE OTIS MEMORIAL PARK
WAS RESTORED TO ITS
ORIGINAL CONDITION AND RE-DEDICATED ON FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2000 AT 3:00 P.M.
IN HONOR OF MEMORIAL DAY
Pictures after
rededication
Pictures
of dedication taken by
Leo
Guenet
Tribute to lost flyers entered into the Congressional Record Dec. 15 2000
Deborah Brody daughter of Capt
Murray Brody would like to talk with anybody who flew
with or knew her Father
Notice
Kimberly Ann
Hoppe Holloway daughter of First Lt. Richard Karl Hoppe would like to talk
with anybody who flew or knew her father
What Happened to 55-5262
by A. J. Northrup
James Walsh seeking info about his father A1C William Walsh