Marion, VA Airliner Crash Kills Seventeen, Feb 1945

CAB STARTS PROBE OF AIRLINER CRASH.

Marion, Va. -- AP -- Civil Aeronautics Bureau Investigators were at the wreckage of an American Airlines transcontinental liner Monday, seeking to determine the cause of the crash that took the lives of 17 and seriously injured five others aboard the plane, which plunged across Glade Mountain 15 miles from here, before dawn Friday.
The inquiry, headed by WILLIAM K. ANDREWS, chief investigator, began at the wreckage of the twin-engined "Mercury." It will continue with the questioning of five survivors in a hospital here and will be concluded in New York, where the plane took off on a transcontinental flight to Los Angeles.
12 Identified.
Meanwhile, identities of all the dead were disclosed when the Navy listed 10 Navy and two Marine victims.
The Navy casualties included Comdr. JOHN FREDERICK ROBINSON, New York City, who until detached from Washington several weeks ago for sea duty in the Pacific, had been acting assistant director of the chaplains division of the Navy.
Other Navy men killed were Lt. CHARLES BEAL SWIFT, JR., Tauton, Mass.; Lt. MORGAN LINDER HOBART, Hollywood, Calif.; Lt. (jg) ROGER DE COVERLEY MOORE, Coronado, Calif.; Lt. (jg) HARRY FARHNEY YOUNG, San Diego, Calif.; Ensign HENRY WAGNER, New York City; Ensign JOHN WESTON PABST, San Diego, Calif.; Ensign THOMAS McCLURE OWEN, JR., New Haven, Conn.; Chief Pharmacists Mate EDWIN HUGHES READ, Augusta, Tex., and Coxswain JOSEPH JAMES WAHS, New York City.
Two Marines.
Marine Corps personnel killed were 2nd Lt. SAM LEONARD DAVIS, Norfolk, Va., and 1st Lt. LUTHER C. SMITH, JR., Houston, Tex.
One Army man lost his life. He was Lt.-Col. ALFRED FRAMPTON, Sapula, Okla.
Two other passengers, Major CARLOS AUDIFRED, Mexico City, and CLYDE J. PINNEY, Philadelphia, and two crewmen, Captain JAMES E. STROUD and First Officer R. F. BRIGMAN, both Nashville, also were killed.
Hospital authorities here said that the five persons who survived the crash were injured severely but had good chances of eventual recovery.
Two women, praised because of their efforts on behalf of the other survivors in the harrowing twelve hours before searchers located the wrecked plane, were found on a later examination to be injured much more severely than was first reported.
They are the stewardesses, MRS. SARAH PADGETT, of Nashville, Tenn., who suffered a fractured skull and a fractured clavicle, and a passenger, MRS. VIOLET ULEN, Washington, D. C., who received a fractured clavicle, injured pelvis and sprained ankle. MRS. ULEN, despite her injuries, trampled barefoot along the desolate mountainside for several hours before she succeeded in notifying a farmer of the accident.
Others injured were Lieut. ERWIN W. SCHWARTZ, Syracuse, N. Y.; Ensign LEONARD JOSEPH RICCI, Meriden, Conn. and Ensign FRED LAWRENCE MIDDAUGH, Los Angeles, Calif.
One of the victims, Marine Lieut. SAM DAVIS, was a bridegroom of only three weeks, and his pretty young wife missed death or injury only because lack of accommodations prevented her from traveling on the same plane as her husband.
Lieutenant DAVIS and his bride, the former MISS CAROLYN ELIZABETH LESTER, both of Norfolk, Va., were married February 2.

Kingsport Times Tennessee 1945-02-26
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!