The Springfield native was the last to see 40 passengers alive before a plane crash killed them in Australia in 1943.
Samuel L. Cutler closed the door of a plane and watched it take off, but to his shock, it stayed aloft for only minutes.
In his World War II diary now available in a book, Cutler, a Springfield native who died in 1990, wrote about how the plane dropped from the sky and killed 40 servicemen in Australia.
Cutler was the last to see the servicemen alive and it haunted him.
“What a day and a TRAGIC one....killed while flying at 200 mph. Terrible,” Cutler wrote June 14, 1943
His son, Robert S. Cutler, shepherded the diary and edited the book that he calls a labor of love.
“I think my daughter said it in the forward, that somewhere, Sam is smiling. What is the line about a story with legs? It’s a Springfield story about a Springfield boy,” said Cutler, 78.
The book is “Over and Out! Sam’s Story: The Private War Diary of Captain Samuel Cutler, Army Air Corps U.S. Forces in Australia, 1942-1944” (Xlibris Corporation, 250 p., 2011).
The book is a quick read loaded with detail. On page 185, Cutler writes of exploring the plane wreckage and finding a playing card jammed half-way into a tree by the force of the crash.
Some of the chapters begin with scene-setting text written by Robert Cutler. The first diary entry is Feb. 18, 1942 as Capt. Cutler’s convoy leaves Bangor, Maine. The last is May 20, 1944 in Australia.
Norman Corwin, former Republican reporter, wrote the introduction for the book filled with photographs of Cutler with kangaroos, army life and the crash wreckage.
Robert Cutler places the occasional “War News Update,” such as this one in March 1942: “General Douglas MacArthur arrives in Darwin from Philippines to take command of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific. When asked about the Philippines, he replies, ‘I shall return.’”
Diary entries address a soldier’s heartbreak at not getting mail – “Tough when you expect some and don’t get it”– and hometown references to the Eastern States Exposition and Agawam Race Track.
Robert Cutler, like his father a Springfield native, is an engineering management professor who splits his time between Pennsylvannia and New Mexico.
Samuel Cutler was duty officer on the runway at Bakers Creek, near the northern seaside town of Mackay, Australia June 14, 1943.
The duty required that Cutler read aloud the roll of 41 passengers and shut the door of the B-17C “Flying Fortress.” Only one passenger survived.
The cause of the crash was never determined. Robert Cutler writes in the book that factors probably included fog restricting visibility, an inflight malfunction of one of the four engines, crew inexperience, and the gross weight of the plane, passengers and cargo.
Converting his father’s diary into a book is just the latest effort Cutler has made to commemorate the crash.
One of his successes came in 2009 with dedication of the Baker’s Creek Air Crash Memorial at the Selfridge gate to Arlington National Cemetery in Fort Myer, Va.
That ceremony included U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, a friend of Samuel Cutler’s. Neal wrote in an email Thursday he can picture Cutler wearing his trademark VFW hat and trench coat.
“While serving his country honorably in World War II, Sam became a part of history when he witnessed a tragic plane crash in Australia killing 40 American servicemen,” Neal wrote. "He kept a diary and his incredible story can now be told.”
The book is available by calling (888) 795-4274 or at Xlibris.com Prices are $9.99 electronically, $19.99 paperback and $29.99 hardcover.