The Postcard
A postcard that was published by the Lansdowne Production Co. of London. The card was posted in Camberwell, London on Thursday the 18th. June 1953 to:
Mr. & Mrs. J. Newman,
112, Hawley Road,
Farnborough,
Hants.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"I am having a nice
time, the weather
hasn't been too bad.
I am staying in London
over the weekend.
Hope you are both well.
E. P."
The Tachikawa Air Disaster
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 18th. June 1953, a United States Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashed just after takeoff from Tachikawa Airfield near Tokyo, Japan, killing all 129 people on board.
It was the worst air crash in history at the time, and the first with a confirmed death toll exceeding 100.
Just one minute into the flight, the aircraft's No. 1 (outer left) engine burst into flames. The aircraft commander Herbert Voruz immediately shut down the engine and radioed that he was returning to Tachikawa. He could be heard shouting "Give me more power! Give me more power!" to the flight engineer.
Ground control asked if he could maintain altitude; Voruz replied "Roger". However, as the pilots prepared to return to the airfield, the left wing stalled, causing the aircraft to roll to the left and enter a shallow, but unrecoverable, dive.
In desperation, the pilots attempted to pull up, but in vain. Ground control asked if they were declaring emergency, but received no reply. At around 16:33, the flight disappeared from radar screens. At 16:34, the C-124 crashed into a watermelon patch about 3.5 miles from the airbase and exploded on impact.
Sergeant Frank J. Palyn, 434th. ECB, who witnessed the crash from his car, said:
"At this instant she seemed to hit an air pocket
because she dropped. After this drop of several
hundred feet she went into a left hand spiral dive.
At first I thought the plane would make a rough
belly landing.
The airplane's unusual path of flight seemed to be
due to the power being furnished by the right two
engines. They seemed to be pulling the plane around
and dragging the left wing behind at an angle causing
the spiral prior to the crash.
The plane itself seemed to head towards the ground
at this angle and the left wing, nose approaching the
ground first with the tail at an angle to the right and
above.
Immediately upon contact with the ground she
seemed to explode and burn."
The two starboard engines reportedly kept running for some time after the crash.
Air base and local fire department crews were soon on the scene, followed by chaplains and identification teams. A temporary morgue was set up as victims were retrieved from the wreckage.
USAF Staff Sergeant Robert D. Vess, who was driving from Tokyo with his wife, was about 150 metres away when he saw the aircraft lose control and crash.
Vess immediately ran to the crash site. He pulled the aircraft's radio operator, John H. Jordan Jr., from the wreckage, but Jordan died a few minutes later. Vess then continued to help search for survivors until the aircraft's fuel tanks exploded.
Also helping to pull bodies from the wreckage was American missionary Rev. Henry McCune, who lived nearby. His son Jonathan took pictures of the wreckage with his Brownie box camera.
There were no survivors, and no fatalities among people on the ground, although one man in the watermelon patch sustained burns to his head and hands.
Aftermath of the Crash
According to the accident report, the crash was caused by the pilots' improper flap usage and airspeed loss due to the failure of a port engine.
The 129-person death toll remained the highest aviation fatality count until 1960, when 134 died in the collision of a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 and a Trans World Airlines Lockheed Super Constellation over New York City.
The Tachikawa crash remained the deadliest air disaster involving a single aircraft until an Air France Boeing 707 crashed during takeoff in 1962.
Local residents erected a monument memorializing victims of the tragedy. However, the monument is no longer to be found at the site, which is now a driving school.
René Fonck
The 18th. June 1953 also marked the death the French aviator René Fonck.
René, who was born in 1894, was a former Great War flying ace.
Frankie Laine
Also on that day, the Number One chart hit record in the UK was 'I Believe' by Frankie Laine.