Fallen Nellis airmen honored

The 12 Nellis Air Force Base airmen killed in the crash of two helicopters last week were to be remembered today in morning services.

The memorial was scheduled at 10 a.m. in the Thunderbirds hangar at Nellis. The 12 airmen killed Friday, all members of the 66th Rescue Squadron, were: Capt. Gregg Lewis, a pilot and his crew: Capt. Phillip Miller, Staff Sgt. Kevin Brunelle, Staff Sgt. Kenneth Eaglin, Senior Airman Jesse Stewart and Master Sgt. Matthew Sturtevant; and Lt. Col. William Milton, a pilot and his crew: Capt. Karl Youngblood, Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Armour, Senior Airman Adam Stewart, Airman 1st Class Justin Wotasik and 2nd Lt. Michael Harwell.

The victims ages and hometowns have not been released.

Air Force investigators are still probing the cause of the crash of the two rescue helicopters on the Nellis range 25 miles north of Indian Springs.

Called the worst disaster in the history of the base, it has reminded at least one aviation historian of a similar tragedy in 1944 that claimed the lives of 11 servicemen.

On Feb. 25, 1944, two military planes collided during a night training exercise -- the worst disaster in Nellis' history prior to Friday's incident, which occurred during a nighttime training mission.

Las Vegas aviation archaeologist Doug Scroggins says few people who lived in Southern Nevada in those days probably recall the crash.

"People don't want to remember these disasters. They want to put them behind them."

Frank Wright, director of the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, said that while the 1944 incident may not be well-recalled today, that does not mean it did not hit the community hard back then.

"In the 1940s, the Las Vegas community had a tremendous involvement with the base," Wright said. "People drove soldiers to the base and the hotels took their shows there to entertain them."

As for the 1944 incident, Wright said: "Each generation tends to forget what happened in previous generations. And Las Vegas has been a city of the moment -- waiting for things like the next big hotel opening, the next big boom."

While Friday's disaster may be the worst military accident in Nellis' history, it was not the worst involving a Nellis-based plane.

A Nellis fighter jet collided with a United Airlines DC-7 over Arden in the southwestern area of the valley on April 21, 1958, killing 49, most of whom were civilians. It is regarded as the worst airline disaster in Las Vegas' history.

Scroggins, who for 16 years has collected data at air disaster sites such as those in 1944 and '58, earlier this year published his first edition of Lost Birds, a quarterly Las Vegas-based magazine dedicated to airplane mishaps.

In the magazine he describes his research at the site of the collision between a North American AT-6A and a Boeing B-17G that both had taken off on the morning of Feb. 25, 1944, from the Las Vegas Army Air Field, which later was renamed Nellis Air Force Base.

"Sentimentally the crash last Friday is the worst in Nellis' history because it is the most recent and it took the most lives -- the lives of men whose job it was to save lives," Scroggins said.

"However, from a historical standpoint, I believe the mid-air collision in 1944 was the worst disaster in Nellis' history even though you would have difficulty finding anyone who knows anything about it, even at Nellis."

Scroggins, a former pilot who was grounded for medical reasons, said air disasters were far more common during the World War II era than they are today because pilots back then didn't have modern equipment such as the ground proximity warning system and collision avoidance system.

Scroggins has conducted several digs at the site of the 1944 crash, about three miles northwest of what is now Martin Luther King Boulevard and Lone Mountain Road. He found several significant items, including a military flare gun, oil pressure gauge, a combat camera film magazine and empty shells that date to that era.

But Scroggins says he is running out of time because the site of that crash soon will be under construction as part of the Las Vegas Beltway, and anything of historical value still there will be lost.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the 1944 disaster and Friday's crash was that there was one survivor in 1944 -- Sgt. Richard Miner.

Those who died in the 1944 disaster were: 2nd Lt. Carlton Kleiser, pilot of the AT-6; 2nd Lt. Donald Westhaver, pilot of the B-17 and his crew: 2nd Lt. Court Lake, Staff Sgt. Ralph Warford, Staff Sgt. Robert King, Sgt. Joseph Triscori, Cpl. Thomas Mang, Pvt. 1st Class Lavern Feeland, Pvt. 1st Class Peter Merich, Pvt. Robert Patterson, Pvt. George Patterson and Pvt. Leonard Patterson.

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