Reflections
by Steve Wiandt, Reporter:
After the May 31 publication of my story on the Cuyahoga Falls Historical Society receiving the donation of a propeller blade that survived the 1944 crash of a P-40 Warhawk fighter plane on the east side, a couple of Falls natives shared their recollections of that day.
Dave Cargill of North Hill in Akron graciously shared with me what he remembers from that day. I credit Dave for telling me about the plane crash last year around the time we first met in a local restaurant.
Since then, the story idea was in the back of my mind. Then Priscilla Harding did some spring cleaning in her basement and gave that wartime memento to the Cuyahoga Falls Historical Society. The propeller is on display in the society's museum on Cook Street, just a block from the place where the plane crashed at School Avenue and High Street.
When Harding donated the propeller blade to the museum, she remarked that she held onto it these many years because no one was killed in the accident.
Cargill, 71, who grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, told me he was playing in his backyard on Third Street the day of the crash, Sept. 1. "I looked up, and there was a plane making a funny noise and this pilot jumped out," Cargill said.
"Then I heard that it had crashed over by Schneible Lumber, so my dad, mom and I went over to see the wreckage." Cargill said he and his parents drove to the site of the crash in "the old '38 Buick."
Bill Coleman, 79, of Lakewood, said he lived on Eighth Street on the west side of Cuyahoga Falls at that time. "My mother and I were just getting home from some place. Walking up the porch stairs, I heard an airplane that sounded awfully low. I looked north and -- Gee Whiz! Here's this P-40 Warhawk that was just barely above the treetops." Coleman said he watched the pilot bail out and his parachute open.
He said he knows why spectators said at the time that the parachute fluttered as it came down as though part of it had been torn away. "I saw what caused the fluttering," Coleman said. "The parachute caught on the tail."
Coleman said the parachute got caught and ripped on the plane's tail, causing the pilot to fall faster than normal. Coleman said he had heard the pilot landed in a pine tree where he and his parachute got tangled up in the branches. Pine branches would have been a soft landing place, he added.
"Holy Toledo! I couldn't believe it," Coleman said. "The plane went out of sight because of the house being in the way. We ran to the edge of the porch." About that time, he and his mother heard a loud explosion and saw smoke. Coleman, who was 15 at the time, jumped on his bike and "rode and rode and rode and rode" across town toward the smoke from the burning wreckage. Unable to get close enough to see anything, young Bill had to wait until the next day when his parents drove him to School Avenue where they saw the hole in the ground caused by the crash and explosion.
Dave Cargill said he doesn't remember details of what he saw, such as whether the parachute was ripped. "That's been a hundred years ago," Cargill joked. He said he was unable to see the plane crash to the ground from his vantage point; however, he had heard it hit a water tower on its way down. Regardless of how much time has passed, Cargill said he'll never forget the day the P-40 Warhawk crashed in Cuyahoga Falls. "It has stuck with me my whole life," he said.
E-mail: swiandt@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3141