This Sunday, October 9, Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder. Filmmakers linked to Ken Burns scouting the Mohawk Valley...

A three-person Florentine Films video crew spent time in the Mohawk Valley in early September scouting locations and shooting video for possible use in a historical documentary film series on the American Revolution.

  Florentine, based in New Hampshire, is the production company affiliated with Ken Burns that has created PBS documentary series including the Civil War.

..from The Bob Cudmore laptop that is so old, the letter "E" does not work, but it completes the assignment

The crew from the Amsterdam crash was lucky to survive.  Laura Hillenbrand in her book “Unbroken” wrote of World War II, “Some 15,000 airmen died in accidental crashes stateside.”

Wartime plane crash in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore

It was 9:45 p.m. on Wednesday, October 13 1943 when a twin-engine American Army plane crashed in a rural section of Amsterdam’s South Side as the plane’s four-man crew parachuted to safety in the city’s Fifth Ward.  Remarkably, there were no injuries.  The plane was on a flight between Rome and Schenectady when its engines went out.

Fireman Frank Mazur, standing outside the Central Fire Station at West Main and Pearl Streets, heard an airplane engine sputtering and saw the tail light descending rapidly toward the South Side.  Firefighters, cops and ambulances scrambled to the scene.  The plane went down either in the vicinity of today’s Route 5-S or New York State Thruway.  The Army and State Police guarded the accident scene during the night, keeping crowds of spectators away.

Captain John F. Pope, the last to exit the plane at about 500 feet, was found wandering on DeWitt Street.  He apparently had landed on the roof of popular Fifth Ward Alderman Angelo Sardonia’s house or on the nearby porch of Charles Frohlich.  Accounts differ.  The other three crew members landed safely in the vicinity of the Fifth Ward School on Perkins Street. The plane’s exit door from which they escaped was found on Eagle Street in the city's East End.

Captain Pope of Montgomery, Alabama and Lieutenant Charles Thompson of Schenectady, another member of the crew, were decorated combat veterans from the North Africa campaign. Thompson had been in a plane shot down 45 miles behind the German lines, but Thompson and his men found their way back to allied territory.  The two other soldiers in the Amsterdam crash were Sergeant Joseph Bragdon of York Village, Maine and Sergeant Albert Finarelli of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

The Recorder reported of Captain Pope, "He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal, with several oak leaf clusters, but it remained for Amsterdam to hold the distinction of being the first place over which he bailed out of a plane."

Captain Pope lost his beat-up old hat in the parachute jump into Amsterdam, a hat that had been with him in England, Ireland, Scotland, Gibraltar and all over North Africa in his 108 combat missions. Fortunately, Fifth Ward School second grader Peter Marcucio, celebrating his seventh birthday, and his friend Robert Selbert found the hat and were rewarded with junior sets of pilot's wings later that month.

In a letter to Marcucio, Captain Pope wrote, “As you know, the hat wasn't very good, but it carries a lot of memories with it that make it priceless to me.”

The flight had originated at the relatively new Rome Air Depot, created in November 1942.  The facility became Griffiss Air Force Base after the war in 1948. 

Amsterdam city historian Robert von Hasseln said the plane likely was on a check flight testing repairs to the aircraft or engines before returning it to an operational command. 

Von Hasseln said the type of plane that crashed is not certain, but probably it was a B-25 Mitchell, although it could have also been an A-20, B-26 or another type.  The Mitchell was named in honor of aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell.

The crew from the Amsterdam crash was lucky to survive.  Laura Hillenbrand in her book “Unbroken” wrote of World War II, “Some 15,000 airmen died in accidental crashes stateside.”

Thanks to Al Mancini of Amsterdam for suggesting this story.  Much of the information came from attorney Bob Going.  The story of the plane crash will be part of Going’s book on Amsterdam in World War II called “Where Do We Find Such Men?”  The book will be published later this year. 

Tomorrow, Friday, October 7, 2022

1863: In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, an ingenious young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Bound to a man who would kill her if he knew of her clandestine activities, Stella has to hide not only her efforts but her love for William, a Black soldier and a brilliant musician.

Episode 443

How to write historical fiction with Alyson Richman, co-author with Shaunna Edwards of “The Thread Collectors,” a Civil War novel.

Saturday, October 8, 2022-Pulitzer Prize finalist Nick Bunker discusses his book, “Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity.”

In this new account of Franklin's early life, Pulitzer finalist Nick Bunker portrays him as a complex, driven young man who elbows his way to success.

From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, October 6, 2022

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