Friday, September 4th, the Liken to Hiken group drove up Pat Hollow to the memorial site of a plane crash that claimed the lives of Korean War veterans on their way home in the early morning hours of January 6, 1953. According to information at the site, 37 servicemen and 3 crew members were on the flight which was making its way from Seattle, Washington to Fort Jackson, South Carolina when it crashed into the side of a mountain 8 miles west of Fish Haven, Idaho.
It took 5 days for rescuers to locate the crash site. Medics parachuted to the scene, but no survivors were found. Deep snow made it impossible to identify the remains so the wreckage was under military guard until June 20, 1953, when the recovery operation was completed.
After viewing the crash site we went back to the Pat Hollow forest service sign and walked up another road about 2 miles to a large sink hole. We climbed down in to a grotto like place and to our surprise we saw a couple of spelunkers looking for the entrance to a cave that is supposed to be in the area. The story gets better. The guy says to our fearless leader . . . "is your name Nan?" It turns out to be a guy she went to high school with. (What are the chances!) So we made ourselves at home and enjoyed our lunch. Fortunately we were able to climb back out.
My mom lived in the bear lake valley as a teenager when this plane went down, she tells an Erie story of hearing it fly around tying to find the Paris air strip where kids had shot e lights out and o
ReplyDeleteIt couldn't land.. And the snow storm
Hello Alayna,
ReplyDeleteMy mother was the wife of the pilot who died at this site.
His name is Lawrence Crawford. They had 2 sons who were quite small at the time.
thank you for blogging about your adventures their!
Debbie