Family members of 25 WWII servicemen killed on the flight in 1946 still gather annually at the crash site memorial.
HOLYOKE – Where there was once only heartbreak and the debris of a post-war plane crash on the side of a mountain face, there is now solace for family members of more than two dozen servicemen who died there 65 years ago.
Twenty-five WWII veterans who died aboard a B-17 “Flying Fortress” that slammed into the southeastern slope of Mount Tom on July 9, 1946 were honored Saturday at a memorial service there.
The event also marked the 15th anniversary of the creation of a monument to the fallen in the swath of woods where the plane crashed. The flight was making its final approach and descent to Westover Field when it hit the mountain and burst into flames. The men were on their way home.
A granite plaque with the names of the servicemen now stands in the relative quiet of the forest. On Saturday morning, that quiet was interrupted by a program of speakers gathered to remember the victims.
“If you have any question about whether there is life after death – here it is. You’ve transformed a place of pain and loss into a place of giving and loving,” said Ellen Stettner, a niece of Alfred L. Warm, a 19-year-old member of the Coast Guard from Brooklyn, N.Y., who died in the crash.
Stettner, of Boca Raton, Fla., travels here each weekend for the memorial with her two siblings, Scott and Alfred Stettner.
Alfred Stettner, the sailor’s namesake, wears his “Uncle Al’s” ring on his finger. It was found when the lot was cleared along with a pile of debris from the crash – which was collected and remains at the memorial – and other personal effects of the victims.
He said he travels from Fairfax, Va., each year to honor his uncle.
“My mother always said there’s no such thing as closure,” Alfred Stettner said, after the formal program during which he told the crowd details about the victims gleaned through research and, in part, from a picture album of his uncle’s.
“Rocky and I. He’s my jitterbug partner,” read a caption next to a photo of Warm and Stanley P. Warshaw, a fellow Coast Guard member and Brooklynite.
Warshaw’s sister, Ruby Schultz, also attend Saturday’s service.
“I was a little girl of 12 years old when the doorbell rang that July afternoon,” she told those gathered at the memorial. “I was met by a man in uniform .¤.¤. his solemn demeanor told me this was something bad.”
The men were returning home from Newfoundland to Europe. Fifty years after the crash, which represented the worst loss of the life for the Coast Guard outside a maritime disaster, a committee was formed to search for family members.
Robert Cahillane, of Northampton, was chairman of that committee and organized this year’s event, helping shuttle dozens of participants up the mountain to the so-called “false top” where the plane crashed.
The Stettners’ mother, Dorothy Warm Stettner, was among the family members who came to the memorial every year, according to Ellen Stettner, who was married at the spot three years ago. Dorothy Stettner died after an illness two years ago. A newly planted white birch tree at the site is named in her honor.