Two Helldivers on a Training Mission Crash in the Oquirrh Mountains (1944)

Two Helldivers on a Training Mission Crash in the Oquirrh Mountains

On a stormy day in September 1944 two Curtiss A-25A Shrike Helldiver bombers slammed into the Oquirrh Mountains southwest of Garfield, Utah. The first plane crashed into Black Rock Canyon, while the other crashed approximately one mile southwest of the first, in a rugged unnamed canyon. The two planes were part of a three-plane squadron that had left Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) El Toro in California on training maneuvers. On Monday morning, September 18, the three planes were headed back to California after having fueled up at Hill Field (later Hill Air Force Base) (Salt Lake Telegram [SLTG], 20 September 1944:1). 

Curtiss SB2C Helldiver ca. World War II (Dorr 2014).

On that day, a thunderstorm had lowered the cloud ceiling, resulting in poor visibility, and subsequently forcing the pilots to depend on their planes’ instrumentation to guide them over the nearby Oquirrh Mountains. In addition to poor visibility, the military later speculated that the heavy mineralization of the Oquirrh Mountains may have interfered with the accuracy of the planes’ instruments, further increasing the difficulty in determining their position above the ground (Bauman 1999; Deseret News [DN], 18 September 1944:1). While two of the pilots continued their flight in these difficult conditions, the third plane in the squadron aborted its run and returned safely to Hill Field sometime in the afternoon (SLTR, 21 September 1944:19).

Curtiss A-25A Shrike Helldiver (USAAFRC nd). 

On the morning of September 18, 1944, Garfield residents reported hearing an explosion and seeing a plane crash into the lower reaches of Black Rock Canyon where it burned. The search and rescue team, headed by Sheriff Alma White of Tooele County and assisted by highway patrolmen and Army and Navy personnel, were quick on the scene (Deseret News [DN], 18 September 1944:1). This was the eleventh military plane crash to occur in Utah that year (Ogden Standard-Examiner [OSE], 18 September 1944:1). 

Casualties of the first crash included Marine pilot Lieutenant John Rice (21 years old) of North Abington, Massachusetts and gunner/radioman Staff Sergeant Thomas B. Nash (23 years old) of Chester, Pennsylvania (Bauman 1999; SLTG, 20 September 1944:1). Staff Sergeant Nash’s body was returned to his family in Chester, Pennsylvania where he was buried at the Chester Rural Cemetery. He was survived by his parents and one sister (Ancestry.com 2012).

Headstone for Staff Sergeant Nash (Ancestry.com 2020).

The second wreck (which had not burned) was found two days later by civilian searchers Douglas Manders and Rex A. Bateman, both from Garfield, and L. S. Yates of Hunter. The next day, Manders and Bateman led the recovery crew to the wreck site (Wednesday September 21). The recovery team was led by Major A. M. Moran and Flight Surgeon W. C. Livingood from MCAS El Toro and consisted of military personnel, American Smelting and Refining Company employees, and state highway patrolmen (SLTG, 20 September 1944:1; Salt Lake Tribune [SLTR], 20 September 1944:1). Photographs taken by the three civilian recovery team members were confiscated by Marine officials (SLTR, 21 September 1944:15). 

The casualties of the second crash were pilot Lieutenant Kenneth Charles Desjardins (22 years old) of Salem, Massachusetts and gunner/radioman Sergeant John William Dobrowlski (22 years old) of Nashua, New Hampshire. Lieutenant Rice and Desjardins were roommates back at MCAS El Toro. Dejardins had just celebrated his 22^nd birthday the day before the crash and he had planned to get married on his next visit home. He was survived by his fiancé, his parents, and 10 siblings. Desjardins’ body was returned to relatives in Salem, Massachusetts where he was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery (Ancestry.com nd; Bauman 1999). Sergeant Dobrowlski’s body was returned to relatives in Nashua, New Hampshire, where he was interned at Saint Stanislaus Cemetery (Ancestry.com 2021a). 

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Second Lieutenant Kennth Charles Desjardins, 1943 (Ancestry.com 2021b).

Veterans’ headstone for Desjardins (Ancestry.com 2015).

John William Debrowlski ca. 1943 (Ancestry. Com 2021a). 

In October 1999, the Air Force National Guard and Kennecott employees mounted a mission into the Oquirrh Mountains to remove the unburned second plane (Desjardins’ and Debrowski’s plane) that had been resting in the canyon for over 55 years. Most of the wreckage, including the wings, propeller, and part of the tail assembly of the Helldiver, was removed from the canyon. Earlier in the year, on Memorial Day weekend (May 31), vandals had raided the wreckage and absconded with a machine gun and a fuselage fragment marked with battle insignia. Fortunately, Kennecott security caught the culprits as they tried to leave Kennecott property. The recovered materials, from both the wreckage and the vandals, were shipped via Hill Air Force Base to the National Museum of the United States Air Force (NMUSAF) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. One brother and two sisters of Desjardins were still living when the plane was recovered. (Bauman 1999). 

At the time of the recovery, it was thought that the plane would be restored. Currently (June 29, 2023) the NMUSAF does not have a Shrike on display at their museum, but they do have wings and what appears to be the tail section of an A-25A Shrike locked away in storage. These parts and parts from two other Shrikes were offered for exchange in NMUSAF Solicitation Project 19-002. Currently the solicitation project is closed, and the parts remain in storage. In their solicitation, the NMUSAF states that the “aircraft offered for exchange was acquired by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) during 1944 and transferred to the US Marine Corps for operational training” (NMUSAF 2023). It is highly probable that these parts are from the Shrike recovered from the canyon southwest of Garfield, Utah. 

Wings and tail section of a 1944 Curtiss A-25A (BuNo 76805) in storage at the NMUSAF (NMUSAF 2023). 

The A-25A Shrike was the last version of the U.S. Navy’s SB2C Helldiver (USAAFRC nd; Wikipedia 2023), which from the start, had been an unpopular aircraft that was “neither as bad as its critics said or as good as its manufacturers hoped” (Dorr 2014). The planes were manufactured for the USAAF and the biggest change to the aircraft was that it did not have folding wings, for it was no longer necessary for this aircraft to land and be stored on aircraft carriers. The USAAF ordered 900 in early 1943, but by late 1943, the Shrike dive bomber had been replaced by fighter aircraft such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Unwanted, the excess Shrikes were given to the U.S Marines who used them for training and as target tugs (USAAFRC nd). 

Curtiss A-25A Shrike (SB2C Helldiver), 1944-1945 (World War II Database 2010).

Jim Samar, radio operator/gunner with WWII bomb squadron VB-80 demonstrates use of backseat .30-caliber machine gun on Helldiver, WWII (Dorr 2014). 

Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver, photograph depicts the world’s only airworthy helldiver (Dorr 2014; Wikipedia 2023).