148TH FIGHTER WING

Only 3 men survived the 1954 last flight of this 'Gooney Bird'

Teri Cadeau — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:20:00 GMT

HERMANTOWN, Minn. — It was Memorial Day in 1954. Nine members of the Minnesota Air National Guard's 179th Squadron, one U.S. Air Force captain and a retired National Guard colonel decided to stay in Indianapolis through Monday afternoon so they could catch the Indianapolis 500 race.

They were on a routine training mission in a C-47 Skytrain "Gooney Bird" to pick up some K-14 sights for the guard unit.

But only three men would survive the return flight.

The flight from Indianapolis

Conflicting reports from newspapers June 1 give slightly different accounts about why the plane left when it did. A story from the June 1, 1954, Duluth News Tribune said the crew chose to fly Memorial Day weekend instead of the next weekend so they could attend the Indianapolis 500. But a story that published in The Indianapolis Times the same day said it was on the recommendation of Master Sgt. Edwin Rosner, a mechanic at Stout Field, that the crew decided to extend their stop so they could go to the race.

“They landed here Sunday evening on a routine training flight,” Rosner told the Times. “They were all friends of mine from when I was stationed in Duluth. I suggested they stay over to see the race.”

Rosner said he obtained tickets for the group of 15. It was the first race for all but one of the men, Capt. William C. Lovshin, a former medical student at Indiana University.

The plane departed Indianapolis at around 4:30 p.m. Monday. Visibility around Duluth was reported to be 4 miles when the flight left, but conditions grew foggier throughout the day. The pilots, Maj. Frederick A. Kemp Jr., of Duluth, and Capt. Victor Graboski, of Cloquet, were set to divert to Minneapolis but heard from Duluth air traffic controllers that visibility had improved enough for an instrument landing.

"The fog seemed pretty bad, the worst I ever landed in," Master Sgt. William "Bill" Willeck, one of the survivors, said in an interview with the Duluth Herald the following day.

The plane missed the runway on the first go-around and ended up banking over the highway.

"Dad said when the plane banked, he could see the movie playing at the Skyline Drive-in outdoor theater on Miller Trunk Highway, where Bullyan RV is now located," said Mary Arras, daughter of Master Sgt. Earl Sugars, another survivor.

Bill Willeck said in the story the following day that he became worried when he noticed how close they were to the cars on the highway and recalled someone joking about them being "low enough to walk home."

The crash and aftermath

According to the News Tribune story the following day, the plane's right wing scraped the ground as Kemp banked and the plane "plummeted through the trees in the wooded area." The plane crashed about 200 yards off Stebner Road in a gravel pit behind Sunrise Memorial Cemetery in Hermantown.

"The plane tore a swath 200 feet long and 75 feet wide, snapping off trees like match wood. In its dive, it apparently struck on one wing and cartwheeled so that in landing it faced the swath it had just cut through the woods," read the News Tribune story.

The fuselage ended up in two pieces. One motor was located on a hilltop 73 feet away from the main wreckage and a propeller was found 25 feet beyond that.

Eight of the plane's passengers were killed in the crash:

Maj. Frederick A. Kemp Jr, 36, Duluth, pilot. Capt. Victor Graboski, 33, Cloquet, co-pilot. Col. A. C Ott, 62, Duluth. Capt. William C. Lovshin, 31, Chisholm. Lt. John Hughes, 24, Duluth. Tech Sgt. Elmer Haas, 33, Duluth Staff Sgt. Charles Stewart, 23, Duluth. Airman 2nd Class James Stewart, 21, Duluth.

Three more died in the next day or two in Duluth hospitals: Staff Sgt. Allen Christensen, 27, Duluth; Staff Sgt. Donald E. Marty, 24, Duluth; and Airman 1st Class William Lange.

Master Sgt. George Ion was in critical condition following the crash. Bill Willeck said he saw Ion get thrown past him during the crash, still strapped in his seat.

Bill Willeck and Earl Sugars were reportedly seat-belted near the tail end of the plane.

"I remember him saying that the only reason he survived was because they were back in the tail section where the wings are. There's more support from the base of the plane," said Jerry Willeck, Bill's son. "He always told me and my brother, if you're going to fly, fly back there because it's safer. But I mean, if it's going straight down, it doesn't really matter where you go. Nobody expects the plane to go down, right?"

Bill Willeck and Sugars found each other outside the plane and walked down Stebner Road to the home of Mrs. Russell Westberg. She was still sitting up in mourning for her husband who had died the day before.

All three newspapers report she heard the crash while sitting in her kitchen with her daughter. The family went out to investigate and found Bill Willeck and Sugars looking in a state of shock. The men told her about the crash and to "call the police and ask them to send all of their ambulances." She called the air base as well and offered the men a cup of coffee and aspirin in the meantime.

The survivors and their families

Earl Sugars' son, Rick Sugars, believes he remembers hearing the crash at their former home in Hermantown. He was 5 years old at the time.

"I swear Mom and I were in the kitchen, waiting to hear something from Dad and I heard it crash. It was only 2 miles away," Rick Sugars said. "Mom got kind of concerned, but I don't remember much after that."

His sister, Mary Arras, wasn't born yet, but she agreed that they were close enough to the site that "Rick probably could've heard it."

All three of the survivors of the crash were original members of the 179th and all three remained with the National Guard after the crash. The three men and their families would get together occasionally to go camping, fishing or hunting. Several members of all of their families also chose to serve in the National Guard.

Ion had served in the Pacific with the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII and worked as an aircraft mechanic, flight chief and instructor with the base. He lost a "chunk out of his leg" due to the C-47 crash, according to his son, Bill Ion. He spent a lot of time out in the yard and riding a bicycle to build up his strength.

"He wanted to get back to work," Bill Ion said. "He never talked about it. He just wanted to keep going."

Ion would go on to be killed in the line of duty in 1975, when a high-pressure bottle exploded while he was working in the intake of a F-101B at the 148th Fighter Wing. He was inducted into the Flight of Honor by the 148th last fall for his outstanding service.

Bill Willeck ran a mink farm for several years at his family home in Saginaw. He also started and ran the Willeck Brothers Garage at the intersection of Minnesota Highway 33 and U.S. Highway 2 until it was torn down in the 1980s due to highway reconstruction. He kept a copy of the Indianapolis Times story of the crash as well as a collection of photos the base took of the site. Jerry found both after his dad died in 1993.

"He didn't talk about the crash; he didn't talk about the war he served in. I suppose it might have been so traumatic," Jerry Willeck said. "But he kept himself busy and he was a good father."

Sugars continued working for the base. He needed to have a spinal fusion 10 years following the crash, which Rick Sugars said helped relieve any lingering pain from the impact. His wife saved articles about the crash and a few photos from the site; Arras donated them to the Hermantown History Center after her mother's death. Arras wanted to erect a memorial to honor those lost in the crash and to share the history of the site, but she didn't receive a lot of support for the idea.

"We decided to put in a geocache. We've been doing it for a few years now and thought it was an appropriate way to remember it," Arras said. "So we have a model of the plane up in a tree as close to the site as you can get while still being on public land. And when you visit the site, you can see info about the plane and the crash and everything."

The Gooney Bird Geocache can be found at Terrace Circle off Stebner Road at coordinates N 46 48.889 W 92 11.451.

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LISTEN: Audio of 148th airmen shooting down object over Lake Huron

Jimmy Lovrien — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 00:06:27 GMT

DULUTH — The small “octagonal” object flying over Lake Huron on Feb. 12 appeared to have strings hanging below it before it was shot down, according to cockpit audio of the two F-16 pilots from the Minnesota Air National Guard’s Duluth-based 148th Fighter Wing that responded.

The Detroit News confirmed the authenticity of the audio with a U.S. Air Force spokesperson Wednesday, Feb. 15. The audio was first reported by The War Zone, a military news site.

“It’s almost like an octagonal shape. I’m going to call it a balloon,” one of the pilots said. “I’m able to see strings hanging down below it but I don’t see anything below it. It’s pretty small, I don’t know, like the size of a four-wheeler or something.”

The pilots can be heard in the 14-minute audio clip trying to see and describe the object.

“It definitely looks like something, there’s some kind of object that’s suspended in the air? It’s hard to tell. It’s pretty small,” one of the pilots said.

At one point, one of the pilots said he had a “tone” at 3 miles. A tone indicates a missile has locked onto a target.

“I just can’t see it with my eyes, with the glare in the cockpit,” he said. “It’s so small.”

“Looking outside if it’s kind of a blackish, I’m going to call it a container,” one of the pilots said. “I can’t really tell, though, what the shape is.”

Eventually, one of the F-16s would down the object, which was flying at an altitude of about 20,000 feet, with an AIM9x Sidewinder missile.

The object fell into a deep area of Lake Huron and likely in Canadian waters. A search for it is underway.

It was the third unidentified object shot down over the U.S. and Canada in as many days. The shootdowns come after a Chinese spying balloon was brought down Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina after crossing much of the country.

First shot missed

The missile that downed the object wasn’t the only missile fired by the F-16s Sunday. The first missed, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Tuesday.

“First shot missed, second shot hit,” he said.

Milley said the missed missile was tracked and “landed harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron.”

“We go to great lengths to make sure that the airspace is clear and the backdrop is clear to the max effective range of the missile,” he said.

Object could be ‘benign’

All three objects shot down last weekend have yet to be recovered.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, on Tuesday said there has been no indication those objects were part of China’s spy balloon program, Reuters reported.

The intelligence communities are considering the possibility that the three objects could be balloons "tied to some commercial or benign purpose," Kirby said, according to Reuters.

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Search for debris continues after Duluth-based fighter wing shoots down unidentified object

Jimmy Lovrien — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 23:41:32 GMT

DULUTH — An F-16 from the Minnesota Air National Guard's 148th Fighter Wing shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Sunday. Officials are now searching for the debris, which likely fell into deep Canadian water.

The Duluth-based fighter wing, which flies F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets, took off from Madison, Wisconsin, "to shoot down a flying object over Lake Huron as part of a federal mission," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in a tweet Sunday evening.

"The Bulldogs executed their mission flawlessly, protected the homeland, and got the birds home safe," Walz said.

I’m proud of the airmen in the @148FW, based out of Duluth, who earlier today took off from Madison, WI to shoot down a flying object over Lake Huron as part of a federal mission. The Bulldogs executed their mission flawlessly, protected the homeland, and got the birds home safe.
— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) February 13, 2023

It's the third unidentified object shot down over the U.S. and Canada in as many days. The shootdowns come after a Chinese spying balloon was brought down Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina after crossing much of the country.

Reuters reported that the military is trying to recover debris from the object, which likely fell in Canadian waters.

"The object over Lake Huron now lies in what is probably very deep water," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a White House news conference Monday.

A U.S. Navy Boeing P-8 Poseidon, a maritime patrol aircraft specializing in searching for submarines, passed over the Canadian side of Lake Huron Monday afternoon, according to a live track of the aircraft's flight.

Few details have been shared on the three objects downed since Friday.

Airmen and F-16s from the 148th have been at Madison's Truax Field in recent months, according to photos by the Instagram account @badger_wings, a Madison-based aviation photographer.

The Wisconsin Air National Guard's 115th Fighter Wing retired its last F-16 in early October and other units have been filling in until the 115th converts to the F-35 Lightning II aircraft later this spring.

"A small contingent of F-16s from other units will temporarily operate from Truax Field to conduct homeland defense training while the 115th Fighter Wing transitions to its new airframe," the 115th Fighter Wing said in an October news release.

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On Monday morning a spokesperson from the 148th confirmed the Fighter Wing responded to the object over Lake Huron but declined to comment further on the mission and why the 148th had airmen and F-16s in Madison. The spokesperson said additional information would come from the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. A spokesperson at NORAD said the only on-the-record material about Sunday's mission was a transcription of a Sunday news conference.

The F-16 fired an AIM9x Sidewinder missile and downed the object at 2:42 p.m. EST at the direction of President Joe Biden based on recommendations from Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and military leadership, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a news release Sunday.

"The location chosen for this shoot down afforded us the opportunity to avoid impact to people on the ground while improving chances for debris recovery," the Department of Defense said in its release. "There are no indications of any civilians hurt or otherwise affected."

Two F-16s landed at Truax Field at about 5:30 p.m. Sunday, both with "DULUTH" on the tails, according photos by Instagram accounts @Badger_Wings and @jac_AirAndSpace. The photographers said each plane landed with an empty underwing station where missiles are typically mounted.

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According to Bloomberg News, the White House said Sunday it’s too early to definitively describe the object shot down Sunday. It was spotted at about 20,000 feet, an altitude that was assessed to pose risks to civilian flights.

Reuters reported Sunday that U.S. Air Force General Glen VanHerck told reporters it was unclear what the objects are, where they originated and how they remain airborne.

"We're calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason," said VanHerck, the head NORAD and Northern Command.

NORAD is responsible with defending North American airspace.

The Department of Defense said NORAD was tracking the object visually and by radar since Sunday morning. It also said it was likely the same object briefly detected over Montana on Saturday.

"Based on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive (Department of Defense) sites," the department said.

VanHerck said he believed this month’s shootdowns mark the first time NORAD or the United States Northern Command took “kinetic action against an airborne object” in U.S. airspace, according to the transcript of a Sunday news conference.

NORAD was established in 1958 and Northern Command was established in 2002.

If the object shot down in U.S. airspace on Sunday is confirmed to be from another country, it wouldn’t be the first foreign object downed over the lower 48 states by aircraft.

In World War II, Japan launched many bomb-carrying balloons from within its country. Prevailing winds would then carry balloons across the Pacific Ocean and over North America.

According to a 1973 article in the “Smithsonian Annals of Flight” by Robert Mikesh, a combat pilot and Smithsonian curator, some of the balloons were shot down from the ground or from a ship, but two were shot down by U.S. Army Air Force aircraft: one over California in February 1945 and another over Nevada a month later. Another was shot down by the Royal Canadian Air Force over Sumas, Washington, which sits on the U.S.-Canada border, in February 1945.

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Duluth-based 148th to deploy 300 airmen in spring

Duluth News Tribune — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 19:21:52 GMT

DULUTH — The Minnesota Air National Guard 148th Fighter Wing will deploy more than 300 airmen along with F-16 aircraft overseas this spring to the Middle East and Asia.

The deployment was described as previously scheduled by the base in a news release Thursday, and unrelated to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The 148th will conduct U.S. Air Forces Central Command missions in the U.S. Central Command area. According to the U.S. government website, the Central Command is responsible for defending and promoting U.S. interests in 20 nations in the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the strategic waterways that surround them.

“The 148th Fighter Wing has been tasked to support the ongoing mission in the U.S. Central Command,” said 148th Fighter Wing Commander, Col. Chris Blomquist. “Winning today’s fight means executing the daily missions across the theater to meet the USCENTCOM commander’s priorities.”

While deployed, the 148th will deliver coalition air power with U.S. partners to secure and stabilize the area, a 148th Fighter Wing news release said Thursday.

“Each of our airmen is important to this mission,” Blomquist added.

The deployment is a “regularly scheduled Air Expeditionary Force deployment for the 148th Fighter Wing,” the news release said. “The tasking is not the result of current events in Ukraine.”

In 2021, the 148th Fighter Wing performed diverse state and federal missions including providing security support to the 59th Presidential Inauguration, providing COVID-19 pandemic support across the state, assisting civil authorities during civil unrest in the Twin Cities, and wildfire suppression support in northern Minnesota.

Currently, the 148th Fighter Wing has more than 100 Airmen deployed supporting Central Command and U.S. Africa Command missions.

In addition to overseas missions, 148th Airmen are supporting Operation Allies Welcome. The mission ensures Afghan personnel have the support they need as they transition to their new life in the U.S.

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