Moses Lake man seeks 1952 Globemaster survivors
Steve Creviston, of Moses Lake, stands by a memorial site for the Forgotten Heroes memorial at Grant County International Airport.
MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake's Steve Creviston follows a basic script when calling survivors of the 1952 Air Force air crash in Moses Lake.
He explains who he is, what he's doing and if the person he contacted minds talking about the crash.
Creviston's goal is to find all survivors or their relatives to inform them about the memorial project underway in Moses Lake.
Once completed, the memorial will honor the people on the flight as part of the Air Force's Operation Sleigh Ride. The flight was headed to Texas before Christmas, but crashed shortly after takeoff. Of the 115 passengers on board, 87 died.
"It's just so they can know there is something the community has done to remember their loved ones," Creviston said.
He's done Internet searches to find survivors. Searches for unusual last names are more likely to show results. So far he's found one survivor and two survivors' sons.
"We get just as much satisfaction of finding family of survivors, than just finding survivors themselves," Creviston said.
Some survivors of tragic events don't like to talk about the circumstances because they were too horrible. Others don't mind and still others would just as soon not remember it.
"When we do look for survivors, it's one of the things we have to be careful of," he said.
It's also possible survivors' children weren't told about the air crash, he said.
Creviston is still seeking survivors Billy P. Alexander, David Balden, George Diemas, Willie M. Ellis, Robert J. Elrod, Waymond K. Ferguson, F. Ford, Hoyt M. Greene, Donald H. Grogan, Donald L. Herring, Frank Higgenbach, Manford L. Irwin, Fulimon G. Martinez, Alexander Maynes, Howell McCarley, Thurman McDonald, Ralf M. Miller, Marion J. Read, Frank Riggenbach, Ignatio Schwan, Alvin R. Six, Joseph Skrnartz, Spurgeon D. Stonecypher, Joseph C. Stout, Duane O. Taylor, James D. Taylor, Francis M. Wehrle, Charles B. Welker and Ignatiusa Schwan.
Creviston, a Moses Lake optometrist, served in the Army reserves for nine years and was on active duty for 3.5 years.
He has respect for the military and the older generation who served in World War I, World War II and the Korean War, he said.
Mike Bellgardt, of Moses Lake, is working with Creviston on the memorial, but says it's Creviston finding survivors and their families.
Bellgardt became interested in the crash while employed with the Port of Moses Lake as an electrician. He was working on the port's old buildings and started reading about the history of the Grant County International Airport, which is part of the former Larson Air Force Base.
He thanked Jeniel Cramer, Joann Hosszu, Mike Conley, Scott Carver, Larry Godden, Darrin Jackson, Shawn Mayo and Creviston for their help on the project.
Ed Ginter, of Moses Lake, now 79, is a former Larson Air Force Base airman. He helped at the crash scene with other servicemen as a 20-year-old.
"Now I appreciate what they're doing for these people who were killed," Ginter said. "I think it's a pretty good deal. It was always in our mind that people got killed out there."
For more information, find Forgotten Heroes Memorial on Facebook or call Creviston at 509-361-9060.
The memorial is to be erected June 2.
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