Forgotten soldiers remembered

MOSES LAKE - A crowd of people gathered to remember the servicemen who died at Larson Air Force Base in 1952.

The Forgotten Heroes Memorial was dedicated Saturday. The memorial honors the people aboard the C-124A Globemaster, which crashed shortly after takeoff, resulting in the deaths of 87 servicemen.

Mike Bellgardt told the crowd the idea for the memorial came after he hit a deer and broke his radiator while he was geocaching about a year and a half ago.

"We had a lot of time to talk about things, and we talked about the history of Moses Lake and we talked about the airplane crash. We both looked at each other and said, 'You know, somebody needs to make a memorial for this. It's just too many people to have died in our backyard and not have a memorial built to honor them,'" he said.

The effort to construct the memorial has been a community effort involving the Moses Lake Lions Club, the American Legion, the Columbia Basin Job Corps and other community members, Bellgardt said.

Air Force Col. Chet Roshetko said when ground was broken on the memorial it became hallowed ground. The memorial will become a place where people can stop and learn about the crash.

"When the children of Moses Lake grab their dad's hand and say, 'What are those stones?' Or when travelers come of the highway and say, 'What's this historical marker?' and when anybody of any kind takes pause to wonder what happened here? This memorial will tell them," he said.

He described the crash, saying the plane took off from Larson Air Force Base on the morning of Dec. 20, 1952, and crashed at 6:52 a.m. Roshetko said the tragedy seems so much worse because it happened right before Christmas.

"It's a tragedy that seems so much worse because so many of these military men had just left Korea to come home and spend time," he said. "It's a tragedy that seems worse because just six months later on July 27, 1953, an armistice would be signed, and the fighting would stop."

The crash marks a loss of potential to do great feats, Roshetko said. He pointed out the list contains the full names of the soldier, but not what they were called when they were alive.

"It's really not hard, if we just close our eyes for a moment. What we really hear are wives and parents and siblings and friends and teachers and pastors calling not Robert, but Robby, Bobby, Bob, not Joseph, but Joe, Joey, Jojo, Jim, Jimmy, Johnny, Jack," he said. "If we can close our eyes again, we can see the more heart-wrenching (scene). You'll hear children calling, 'Father.'"

Tommie Tindell, who was scheduled to be on the plane, spoke at the event. His wife warned him to not take the plane and find a different way home. The memorial has been a long time in coming, he said.

"If it hadn't been for my wife, I would have been there that morning," he said. "(The crash) was one of those things that happened and then was totally forgotten about for many, many years. I want to thank the Lions Club, the American Legion, the Job Corps, all the people who have put together this program to make this hallowed ground exist today."

Hazel Bishop, the daughter of Master Sgt. Wendell L. Burton, was 3-years-old when her father died in the crash. She spoke about how the loss of her father affected her, and thanked everyone involved in creating the memorial.

"This matters. My children and their children and their children will be able to come here and see that their grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather mattered to somebody other than just us," she said.

She described her father as a man who loved the military. Most of his family were members of the military at the time of the crash.

"My poor grandmother was never the same after this accident," Bishop said. "My mother was left with four children. My mother was 26 years old with four children ... It was a tragedy that was so far reaching that I was thinking about it last week ... From time to time, I still sit and feel sorry for myself because I didn't have a father, but today, today I'm just grateful for every single opportunity to tell anybody about what you guys have done in this town."