Mabou Crash Site

From: joseph macdonald <joseph000@ns.sympatico.ca>
Subject: [NS-CB-L] APRIL 15, 1943: AIR CRASH RESCUE!
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2002 17:44:16 -0400

Hi Listers:

This is an account of a Canadian Military Plane crash that took place
at MABOU COAL MINES. The article was written by MARY ANNE DUCHARME
(former editor of the paper) for the PARTICI-PAPER for Inverness County.

Happy hunting
Juanita MacDonald

Source: PARTICI-PAPER, December 1991 Vol. 12, no. 12

AIR CRASH RESCUE!
by Mary Anne Ducharme

On April 15, 1943, a Canadian military plane crashed at Mabou Coal
Mines, killing four crew members instantly. The lone survivor, who was
saved only because he happened to be in the tail section of the plane,
had several more coincidences working for him. Eventually, however, fate
caught up with him.

The Air Force was training pilots and crews on Hudson Bombers in
Moncton. They carried out many test training flights over various parts
of the Maritimes, including Cape Breton, and this particular training
flight left Moncton about 6 a.m. and was circling over the water near
the mountains at Mabou Coal Mines. Between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m., the
young, inexperienced pilot thought the plane had enough altitude.
However it became apparent that they would clip the tops of the hardwood
trees unless he veered upward sharply. The pilot threw the throttle to
go up, but the manoeuvre stalled the engine, and the plane nose-dived
straight to the ground. There has been speculation that the altimeter
may have been faulty, or that other mechanical defects in the plane
contributed to the crash, but pilot error was at least partially
responsible.

BEN MACCARTHY, a 24 year old from Glace Bay, survived because he was a
gunner, and he was the only one positioned in the tail section of the
plane. The tail broke off 12 feet from the end, and he was carried in
that piece.

The slim, auburn-haired young man climbed out of what was left of the
tail section in a dazed shock. His four friends were all dead, their
dismembered bodies strewn in different places. He could see the head of
one of them wedged near a tree stump.

BEN was bleeding from a laceration on his arm that had nearly severed it
from his shoulder, and the wrist on the same arm was broken. Luckily,
his legs were uninjured. However, he knew he would bleed to death very
quickly unless the blood flow was stopped, so he tore portions of shirt
from one of the other men and twisted it into a kind of tourniquet
around his shoulder just above the cut. He looked around him and the
area was rough mountainous terrain, heavily wooded. Although it was
April, there was still snow on the frozen ground, and in some places it
was quite deep. There was no sign of habitation nearby. There was no
choice but to seek help, even though he hated to leave the exposed
bodies of his friends their unattended. He started down the mountain,
struggling in the deeper snow drifts, afraid that he might collapse and
die of shock and exposure.

If BEN had travelled even slightly off from the direction he did, his
chance of survival were nil. Turning in the direction of Sight Point,
for instance, he would find no houses at all. As he came to the area of
MacKinnon’s Brook, he saw a light and smoke about two miles in the
distance. It was the house of JOHN ANGUS MACARTHUR and his son DUNCAN.
Later the similarity of names would strike them as a peculiar
coincidence.

BEN was luckier than he knew at the time, JOHN ANGUS had all but
finished their move to Mabou Harbour Road, and only went to the Brook to
feed stock that was still there and do some lumbering. They stayed
overnight rarely. It was another coincidence that they happened to be
there at that hour of the morning.

As it was, BEN was suffering from the loss of blood and shock and barely
made the two miles to the MACARTHUR house before passing out.

JOHN ANGUS and DUNCAN made him as comfortable as possible, but he knew
that he would die unless they were able to obtain medical help very
quickly. There were problems. At this particular time, phone service had
been discontinued at the Coal Mines. They were remote, and the ten or so
miles of road between there and Mabou was blocked with deep snow drifts
in some places, and extremely icy in the clear sections. JOHN ANGUS
stayed with BEN while DUNCAN, lacing his horse into a dangerous run on
the ice, began his breakneck ride to Mabou. There he would get DR.
ALEXANDER J. MACNEIL to come by car. On the way, he stopped long enough
at the homes of ANGIE DAN MACPHEE and HUGHIE DUNCAN MACEACHEN, to ask
them to gather crews to clear off the snow drifts to make the road
passable.

STANLEY MACNEIL, the nineteen year old son of ” Dr. A.J.” was standing
in the front of the family garage when DUNCAN arrived on his spent and
heaving horse. Although he drove earlier model cars, DR. MACNEIL, 76
years old, now depended on STANLEY to drive him to house calls. STANLEY,
who had early developed a keenness for auto mechanics and who loved to
drive their ’37 Plymouth, was happy to assist his father in this way.
Fortunately, they were at home at the time, for it was very common for
the doctor to be off on house calls at any hour. STANLEY, the doctor,
and STANLEY’S sister MARY, who sometimes acted as a nurse for her
father, hastily drove off. They made it through the snow banks, which
the MACPHEEs and MACEACHERNs had cleared away, and zigged-zagged on ice
past the home of CHESTER STARKS. But beyond that was two or more solid
miles of even slicker ice. It was obvious that they would have to walk
to MacKinnon’s Brook. Undaunted, the elderly, and small DR. A.J. took
his medical bag and they trekked across the ice in the raw April wind.

They found JOHN ANGUS had stoked up the woodstove so that the house was
warm and that he had done all he could for BEN who was seemingly awake,
but still dazed, mumbling constantly about “my buddies.” With assistance
from MARY, DR. MACNEIL gave him ether, and stitched up the nearly
severed arm, set the bones of the wrist, and stabilized the limb in an
aluminium splint. A testimony to his skill was that the wound healed
cleanly and BEN recovered completely from the injury.

Soon after they carried him to a wood sleigh, bundled in a buffalo robe.
When they reached the car, they transferred him to the back seat, and
DR. MACNEIL took him to his own home, keeping him under close
observation in case he would require emergency hospitalization.

COLONEL DR. RANKAN, an imposing and big military man, (not from the
local area), arrived, and asked the MACNEILs if they would take care of
him until he was out of danger and strong enough to be returned home in
Glace Bay for further convalescence. STANLEY’S mother, ELIZABETH, gladly
consented. They all liked BEN, who was a fine young man in manner and
appearance, and who was doing his best to remain cheerful and be as
little trouble to them as possible.

In the twelve days of his convalescence in the MACNEIL household, those
who got to know BEN became very fond on him. He had been cautioned by
COL. RANKAN not to reveal information about the military aspects of the
training flight, but during the day, BEN talked a great deal about his
friends who had died. During the nights, he was terrified with
flashbacks to the moments before the crash, and the memory of the sight
of his dead companions on the mountain. He called out their names in
fright and grief. The MACNEILs were very much aware that his suffering
was far from merely physical, and that his life would be very changed
because of this ordeal.

When it came time for him to go, MRS. MACNEIL tried to persuade him not
to return to the air, but to take other military duty. His reply was “I
can’t wait to get back. My buddies died. So what does it matter if I die
too?” He did not understand why he was saved and not the others, and
seemed to feel that he somehow owed a debt to his friends who died.

The MACNEILs never saw BEN again, although they received phone calls and
letters from him and his mother in Glace Bay. After further
convalescence, he returned to active military duty. Thirty days after
his return to service, he died in another plane crash overseas.
…………………
CRASH SOUVENIRS
There are several interesting sidelights to this story. As soon as the
military authorities knew of the crash, jeeps began arriving to remove
the bodies of the airmen, and to remove all vestiges of the plane
itself. The area was cordoned off and local people who came to the site
were told not to take anything from the site or to take pictures.
However, it is thought that some pictures were taken and these still
might exist. Also, small aluminium fragments of the plane were taken as
souvenirs, and that year many Mabou people wore aluminium rings which
were fashioned from this material.
………………..
A FISHERMAN’S CROSS
Many local residents believe that a large, white wooden cross once
overlooking the waters in this area was placed there because of this
tragedy. STANLEY MACNEIL, however, points out that the cross was located
on the mountain in front of (closer to the Mines) than that on which the
plane crashed. He points out that the idea of the cross was long
previous to the crash, and this is confirmed by DONALD M. BEATON of
Mabou. Donald believes that the cross was a memorium to one of the
“CARPENTER” MACDONALDs”. ALEXANDER, (b. in 1813, the son of Domhnull
Soar) who was a sea captain. He drowned off the Coal Mines shore in
1852. (See Mabou Pioneers, Vol. 1, page 460) The cross was a kind of
amulet against further tragedies. A relative of ALEXANDER (a cousin?)
asked ANGUS NICHOLSON to do this for him. ANGUS, who was a grand nephew
(?) of ALEXANDER, promised that he would, but somehow never quite got
around to doing it. On his own deathbed, he asked FRANK SULLIVAN to
erect the cross. This time the old promise was fulfilled, sometimes in
the mid-1940′s. The erection of the cross and the plane crash were
roughly in the same period of years and that is why the two are
associated in the minds of people who remember. The white cross is
longer standing.