National Park After Dark - The Greatest Tragedy: Mount Rainier National Park

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

Mt. Rainier has been the site of more than 400 recorded deaths since it was established as a National Park in 1899. Tragedy is no stranger of the glaciated peak with causes of death including climbing accidents, falls, avalanches, murder and suicide. However this 75 year old accident still holds the solemn title for the single greatest tragedy in the history of the park. Strap in and hold on tight as Danielle talks us through the Curtis Commando R5C crash of 1946.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back, everybody, to National Park After Dark, episode six. Episode six. How are we at episode six already? I don't know. It's times flying by, and I'm excited because my list of what I want to do grows every single week. Like, I already know what I want to do for the next three episodes. Yeah, I think you have me a little beat, but I have my next two episodes that are, I just found these really cool. story, so I'm stoked to tell them. All right. So for today, I think we're just going to jump right in. And for this week's episode, I decided to do a local story here in Washington. And I am going to do the greatest tragedy Mount Rainier has ever seen. And it happened in the 1940s. So we're

taking it back a little bit. I really wanted to do Pacific Northwesternia. West theme this week. Yeah, I think it's about time that the PNW makes its appearance on our show. Yes, it's been kind of overdue, six episodes in. I feel like I'm doing it to service. Yeah. By not bringing it up. Yeah, it's time for sure. Okay. So, here we are. Mount Rainier has been the site of more than 400 recorded deaths since it was established as a National Park in 1899. Tragedy is not really a stranger of this glaciate, peak with causes of death, including climbing accidents, falls, avalanches, murder, and suicide. However, out of all of these causes of death, 75 years later after the incident, the aviation accident

that killed 32 U.S. Marines remains the single greatest tragedy in the history of the park. So today, I'm going to tell you the story of the Curtis Commando R5C crash of 1946. I have not heard of this before, minus the little tidbits of saying that you wanted to do this story. Yeah, so there's a lot of details in this story that I had to look up as far as like military jargon and things that I'll explain as we go through. Like, I had no idea what that plane looked like, what it was used for things like that. Yeah. So I'll include some pictures in the show notes and I'll post them on Instagram. So people have a visual of what the plane looks like.

Because when I hear nowadays and being not educated in the aviation realm, as some may be, I had no idea what this plane looks like. And when I think of plane crash, I think of like an airliner that you or I would take on vacation somewhere, you know? Yeah. For people who don't know what the show notes are, they are on our Patreon. So all our Patreon members get access to our show notes with the photos and things like that. If you do want to see those show notes from this episode and all of our other episodes, just go on to our Instagram and you can click our link. And there's a link straight to our Patreon and you can sign up there.

Yeah, and I'll upload these show notes today. So you'll be able to see them tonight. So a little background on Mount Rainier itself. Mount Rainier became a national park, like I said, in 1890. But as we all know, its history begins long before that. It was known as Tahoma or Tacoma for thousands of years by indigenous peoples of the area. And it rises 14,000 feet above sea level. So if anyone is familiar with the area or has ever seen pictures of Mount Rainier, it is stunning.

And I think part of the reason why is because, yeah, it's over 14,000 feet. same as a lot of other peaks in the U.S., but a lot of those other 14ers are in mountain ranges. And Mount Rainier kind of just stands alone. Right. So it's actually an active volcano. And there are foothills around it, but it is just so prominent. I mean, you can see it from hundreds of miles. You can see it everywhere.

I actually have this really cool video. And maybe I'll post it on our Instagram, but it is a video of when I was flying out of Seattle. And we're flying above the clouds and you see all the clouds around and you see Mount Rainier just up above, even above these clouds. And you can see the whole tip of it and you can see us flying by it. That's a really cool video. Yeah, it's kind of like. So maybe I'll post that on our Instagram. Yeah, you should because it is something that, I mean, it's a huge prominent figure in the Pacific Northwest for that reason and many others.

But it is something that's just really, it draws you in. Yeah, absolutely. So it is the highest mountain in the northwestern Cascade Range, and it's the most glaciated peak in the continental U.S. So it's not, like we said, it's not really difficult to understand why it's a prominent figure in the history of the local tribes. And there are six in particular. I'm going to attempt to pronounce their name, so I apologize if I mispronounce any of their names, but they are actually names that I've been seeing a lot now in this area, just different. roads and regions and towns are named after them. So I'm kind of getting in with the locals

and starting to understand how to say these. Yeah. You're new. The six tribes in particular, the Nisqually, Pughalup, Muckleshoot, Yakima, Cowlitz, and Squawkin Island tribes all maintain relations within the park and continue to practice ritual and worship there just like their ancestors did. And kind of tying back to your story. in Denali, there has been a big push in recent years to revert Mount Rainier's name back to its original name, Tahoma, by a lot of those local tribes. Okay. You know how you said it was Denali for a while, like forever, and then they named it McKinley,

right? Yeah, they named it McKinley. I think I actually took that part out of the whole episode. Oh, did you? Well, surprise everybody. Yeah. We talked about it. Yeah.

I took it out of the whole episode because I I was like, you know, we're going to get some comments if we messed up any of this history wrong. I decided not to take it out. Well, I will say in the research I did about the push to revert the name back to Tahoma, they did cite that circumstance with Denali and McKinley. So it was a big debate. Yeah. And it has been for the last few years, mainly coming from the indigenous peoples and the different tribes in the area. And, a lot of the push on the opposite side is because it's already so prominent and all the locals know it at Mount Rainier and there's Rainier beer and all that stuff. Yeah, like they've made a whole community around the name of Rainier. Rainier, yeah. But I did read an article that was published by Cooper Weissman. He wrote an entire paper on this subject. And I'll link his article in the show notes as well because I think it was really well done. But he puts it really beautifully. He says, quote, the name Rainier strikes me as utterly meaningless in comparison with the indigenous Appalachians because the only story Rainier tells is one of colonization. Tahoma, on the other hand, carries with it the invaluable narratives of the first people of this land,

which is so true. That's so true. Like it's the whole history of the volcano. Yeah, and the indigenous peoples have, I mean, I dove down a huge rabbit hole with the history surrounding the mountain and how it's connected to the history of the indigenous peoples of the area. And honestly, if anybody is interested or maybe I'll do it as a bonus episode, blurb for Patrions, but I would really like to do another episode just solely dedicated to that, to include like the history and legends and connection to the mountain and its cultural significance to the indigenous peoples because it was really, really interesting. And I think it deserves I think that would be a really cool episode.

Yeah, so long story short, Rainier holds a lot of significance in the area. Okay, so most of the information that I'm going to recount in this episode during this story, I gathered from a really cool piece from 2006, and it was written by Daryl MacLary for HistoryLink.org. So credit goes to him for a lot of this information. So here we go. We're going to go back to December 10th, my birthday, just saying. Oh, what a coincidence.

December 10th, 1946, six Curtis Commando R5C transport planes carrying over 200 Marines left San Diego en route to Seattle. And just to paint the picture of what this plane looks like. So the Curtis Commando R5C was the largest and heaviest twin-engine transport aircraft used by the U.S. military during World War II. And it was used to haul cargo and tow gliders and like glider planes and also to transport personnel. But when it was carrying passengers, it was restricted to flying at lower altitudes because the cabin was unpressurized. So it wasn't safe to carry people above a certain altitude.

So during the trip, they encountered severe weather over southwestern Washington. and so there are six of these planes flying together. Four of them turned back and landed in Portland, and one managed to land safely in Seattle, but the last plane vanished. The day the plane went missing, so December 10th, at 413, the pilot, Major Robert V. Riley, radioed the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which is now known as the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration. Okay.

In Toledo, Washington. He reported that they were flying at 9,000 feet, that low elevation, that they were required to fly in when they had passengers, and that ice was starting to form on the edges of his wings of the aircraft. And so he requested for permission to fly above the cloud cover. So like you said, I mean, there's clouds surrounding reindeer almost all the time, and especially in severe weather, it's really difficult to visualize where you are. And, I mean, we say, I say we as if I'm a local. The mountains out. Like on a good day, like you can see, it indicates good weather because, I mean, I'm really close to Mount Rainier. And I can see it maybe once a week, especially during this rainy season.

But on a good sunny day, people say the mountains out. But anyway. So he radioed the flight control. and they granted his request, but they started getting concerned when he failed to report back his new altitude, and the CIA attempted to contact him, and they were unsuccessful. So each of the planes had enough fuel to fly for up to 10 hours, so they had hope that maybe he had just landed his plane in a remote area due to the bad weather and just ground with the plane and was waiting. until better weather came along. Sure. So the next day, the Army Navy and the Coast Guard all went on standby to begin dispatching

search planes, but the bad weather kept the planes on the ground. So this is going to be a recurring theme, this bad weather, which... Bad weather. Reminds me of the Denali story as well. I was going to say this is reminding me of Denali with the weather and the not being able to go out and search for these people. Right. which it's just, and you understand, like, from a tactical and logistic point of view, you get it,

but from a human standpoint, just aching to find, you know, your comrades and your friends and your family, it must be just so difficult to have to be continuously pushed back from forces beyond your control or anybody else's control. Yeah, that's so hard. And at the end of whatever rescue rescue that you're doing, you have to, you have to focus on yourself before anyone else. It's like when you're in the airplane and they say, put your own mask on first. You can't help anyone if you're, if you don't help yourself first. Yeah, if you don't help yourself first.

Right. So concerns popped up immediately. And a couple of those was number one, the plane's color. It was all black. So finding it was going to be increasing. difficult just based on that fact. I mean, the mountain is a mixture of black, gray, and white, you know, the snow and different rocks. It's not like highlight or green color where you're going to see it from far away. You have to really look. Yeah. And then the second was avalanches.

Avalanchees happen all the time on the mountain. One avalanche in the right spot could cover the entire wreckage and make it impossible to spot. So those two things aside, they did assemble the search party and were waiting for the weather to clear up to get out there. So as the weather continued to be terrible, they couldn't search from the sky, they started to put leads together from locals that reported hearing the sounds of the engine around the time that the plane had lost contact with the CAA. And based on those reports, Rangers thought the plane may have crashed into the Nisqually Glacier on the south slope of Mount Rainier. So that's where they were going to focus their efforts for the search party.

The assistant chief ranger, William Jackson Butler, and the Paradise District Ranger, Gordon Patterson, climbed Panorama Ridge to scout the area, but a blizzard and low visibility drove them back. Weather continued to be an issue, and for the better part of a week, the conditions were too bad to continue the search. So finally, on December 16th, so this is now six days after the disappearance, the weather let up and aerial searches could finally start. So this is a week later? This is almost a full week later, yeah. Wow, that's a long time.

Yeah. An intense search went underway around that glacier that they presumed the plane had crashed in the Nisqually Glacier, but not a single piece of wreckage was found. A reward was offered of $5,000 to anyone. who found the plane or evidence of the wreckage itself, which I did the inflation calculator. And I was going to say how much is that? Yeah. So $5,000 in 1946 money is approximately $67,000 today.

Wow. It's a lot of cash. Wow, I would have so much money right now. I would be. If that was how much. Retire. Yeah. I would be retired.

Actually, I'd probably be in a. bus driving across the country in the national park right now. You can do that for years on $67,000. Oh, yeah. I could spend like $14,000 a year, say. Yeah, it's a good amount of money. Yeah, and then do that for our math skills, so at least 35 years. I'd say 35 to 40 years, you'll be sad.

The math and that's right. So two weeks into the search, still nothing is turned up. So the search was suspended until the following summer. So just a huge letdown for everybody involved. But they were coming up empty-handed week after week. So they decided to, with the winter weather becoming increasingly difficult to search in, with no real leads, they decided to wait until a few months later in the summer. So they must have assumed that everyone had died then. At this point, yes, it's been assumed that it's a recovery mission at this point. Yeah, because it's been so long. Yeah, I will say, though, this reminded me of my favorite

book I've ever read, and it's called Alive. Have you read it or heard of it? I'm sure you've heard of the story. I feel like, is this the one about the guy who has his arm stuck under a rock? That's 127 hours. Oh, yeah. Or that was the movie. But I believe that was in like Canyonlands National Park or something like that. I'm somewhere in Utah, yeah. Yeah.

So Alive is, I think in the 80, based in the 80s. It's been years since I've read the book, but it's also a movie. And a rugby team from Uruguay was. Oh, this is the one where they had to eat each other. Yes. It was, so they were stranded. My favorite book. It was, sorry.

Okay. It's not because of that. That is my favorite book. It was because it was written by firsthand accounts because, so the plane itself was carrying the team, their friends, and their family, either to or from a rugby big game or championship. And they crashed in the Andes Mountains, and a lot of them died on. impact, but a lot of them survived. And they were stranded there for 72 days. And over those days, they had to do really unimaginable things like consume their relatives and friends and do really

crazy things to survive. But they did. They survived for almost two months, three months. I remember watching, I haven't read the book, but I did see the movie. And I remember watching it and just being horrified at what they had to do. But obviously there were no other choice there. There was nothing around them. It was snow. Yeah. There's no plants. There's no food. There's no, there was no alternative for their survival. So the physical search was suspended, like I said, up until, you know, the next summer. But the investigation was still ongoing. And they really focused in on analyzing how the plane crash actually happened in the first place. And eventually officials concluded that the plane was traveling about.

180 miles an hour at the time then it crashed into the mountain so everyone was likely killed on impact and that major Riley was flying a course that took into account the southeast wind they were experiencing at the time that they took off but as they were traveling the wind changed directions and he was unaware of that and that shift in the wind pushed the plane 25 degrees directly into the path of the mountain. So from this, they surmise that the plain wreckage should be located on the glaciers to the south or southwest side of the mountain, which is kind of where they were searching before on the Nisqually glacier was to the south of the mountain. So fast forward to July. So they were searching December, it's now July. And it's July of

1947, an assistant chief ranger, Bill Butler, was hiking on his day off when he spotted some wreckage on the South Tahoma Glacier. The next day, so he reported it immediately. Everyone's notified and they assemble another search party. And the next day, he flew over with members of the Navy to assist with photographing the area from the sky where he spotted the debris. So to get a larger picture of the area that they're thinking, the wreck is in. And even with the knowledge of where the wreckage was actually located. I mean, he was there the day before he knew what he was talking about. They still couldn't see it from the air. So it kind of just shows how difficult the search has been. And any search is on a mountain like that. So the location of the wreck was super precarious. It was located

9,500 feet up the mountain. And it was on the snowfield that was full of dangerous deep crevasses and it was perpendicular to a 3,000 foot rock wall. So the train was really dangerous to begin with. So you couldn't just like go out to where this? Yeah, you couldn't just walk up to it easily and search. So actually the park rangers at the time and the guides of the time had no recollection of anyone ever exploring that area of Mount Rainier. So it was an area that was really remote due to unknown to them. Yeah, due to how dangerous it was. So on July 24th, a search party began the three and a half mile climb towards the glacier from the base camp that they set up in an alpine meadow called Indian Henry's hunting ground. And I think I'm going to post a picture of

that location as well because it's beautiful. It's like this big alpine meadow and you can see the glaciers in the background and it's really beautiful. That's really pretty. But yeah, so they set up base camp there due to its proximity of where the wreckage is from it. And three and a half miles is still a long, long hike. And it's not just, you know, bopping up a mountain. It's like I just said, there's tons of crevasses.

It's really dangerous. It's in a pretty unexplored place of the park. So they said... Yeah, it's not like you're on a trail, like it's three and a half miles on really tough terrain one way, three and a half miles. It's not some already made trail that you would hike three and a half miles on. Right. So that first day, fragments of the aircraft were found. They were partially embedded in the ice.

Another piece of evidence that they found of the wreckage was a Marine Corps health record, which was, later identified as belonging to one of the Marines that was on the plane and pieces of a uniform and a piece of a seatbelt. So they were pretty confident that this was the place that they needed to investigate. Okay. They went back to base camp after a full day of searching. They didn't find any bodies or the fuselage or anything of that plane, just those little fragments. They went back to base camp. And then the next day, they returned to the area and uncovered more evidence of the crash, which included a knapsack and more records. Again, the weather took another turn and the conditions turned really dangerous. Cravasses were actually opening up overnight,

and the search was suspended again. So even overnight, that one night, there's all these deep crevasses that had opened up that they were walking over the day before. So I have to ask, Is it pronounced crevasses or crevices? I always have said crevasses, but maybe it's so fancy. It does. It's so fancy. When I say it, I'm like, because I said it in the Denali episode, I said crevices, and like, did I say it wrong? Or are you just like really fancy?

No, I'm not really fancy. I think it's tomato, tomato type of deal. But who knows? Who says tomato? I don't know anyone. Also, who says tomato? That says tomato. Or, like, pecan or pecan.

I say pecan. It's pecan. Okay, so that sounds fancy, and pecan sounds not good now that it's coming out of my mouth. I always say pecan pie, not pecan pie. I guess I say pecan pie, but it's pecans. All right, that makes no sense. Like, pecan is the plural form. And pecan is the singular form.

Can someone teach us English? We don't know. Help. Help us. How to pronounce anything in our native language. Okay. So, all right. So the following month in August, Bill Butler was on a scouting trip around the South Tahoma Glacier when he caught sight of a large piece of the wreckage, higher up than the original wreckage at 10,500 feet. So this is an additional thousand feet up from where they were finding all those fragments the month before. So it turned out to be the crushed nose section of the plane, which had been buried under several feet of snow over the winter. So over the summer, the snow melted down enough to expose some of the plane. And upon investigation, 11 bodies were found in this section of the wreck. And once the rangers returned to the park headquarters and reporting their finding, the Navy responded immediately.

And discussion started right away about how to safely remove the bodies from that. wreck. The general consensus- Were there 11 people on the- No. So there was 32, but 11 were found in this section, in the no section that was found. Okay. So the general consensus was that it would take at least 20 experienced mountain climbers and it would take about two to three weeks to bring all 32 bodies if found back from the crash site to that base camp that they set up in that alpine Meadow. And Butler explained that the conditions on the glacier were really bad. It took four hours to get to the site from the original wreckage site that they started at. So it took four hours from that 90500 foot elevation original spot up to the nose of the plane at 10,500 feet. I know I'm reiterating that a lot,

But when I, just looking at the numbers on paper and based on the experience of, you know, my hiking and all of that, it doesn't seem like a lot. But I have no experience on glaciers or in treacherous conditions like this. And I don't know if a lot of people that listen do. So I really want to drive home how significant that is, I guess. Well, I just think about it where they gained a thousand feet. elevation and how long it takes us to gain a thousand feet in elevation on any of the hikes that we do like a small mountain in southern new hampshire like pacman ad knock you gain about a thousand feet till you get to the top and that takes me about 40 minutes maybe right so for

that to take four hours that's more than four times as long as it takes me to go up and i'm a slow hike, too. So some people, I'm sure it takes way less time than that. So four hours does seem like a long time when I think of it that way. Yeah, exactly. You kind of have to, like, put it into terms that you can relate to to really grasp. Relate to. Yeah. Bill Butler is saying, like, kind of putting in his professional opinion, saying, you know, it's not as cut and dry of an operation as it may seem on paper. So a week later, Butler returned. and he led another team to the area of the wreckage, and they found another section of the plane. It was wedged deep into a crevasse with another 14 bodies encased in ice.

Falling boulders and ice in the area were causing too much of a risk for the search party to continue, but before they left, they recovered personal items such as rings, wallets, and watches from the bodies of the men entombed in that part of the plane. and the Naval Public Information Office in Seattle announced that all 32 marine bodies had been located, 25 had actually been visualized, and that there was no doubt that the other seven were undoubtedly in that area. So at this point, they gathered what they could for the families because they couldn't retrieve the bodies at that time. And they kind of just published to the public that we've located everything. We know what happened. And we know what happened, yeah.

That's so sad. So I have not heard this story before. And from the beginning of the story, I was really hoping that you would tell us that they had some crazy survival skills as Marines and made it out of the crash and we're like living off of the land. That would be an epic story. Yeah. And that was like that was like my hope. And I'm sure like their families hoped to at the time. So then hearing that they did find everybody in the plane is really, really sad.

It is sad. And, you know, if they didn't crash the way that they did, you know, hitting the mountain straight on at 180 miles per hour, maybe they potentially could have survived using either their skills. I mean, that rugby team in the Andes didn't have any of the training that Marines did. and they survived 72 days. Imagine what the Marines could have done if they had been given the opportunity to do that. But you hear for most plane crashes that you hear about that there aren't any survivors. So also on the other end of that, I'm not surprised that they died in the plane crash. There was just like a part of me that whole time you were telling that the beginning part of the story that they would come across and some people had survived and they had been like living.

Yeah. I'm sorry to let you down. It's a sad story, but now, like, looking at the mountain every day, I know this story, and I, you know, I think of this crash. It's wild to just be in the shadow of the mountain and know this and look up at it and know of, you know, it's just, it's a weird connection to have now. So on August 24th of 1947, a memorial service for the Marines was held near Longmeyer, Washington, on the summit of Round Pass, which overlooks Mount Rainier and the South Tahoma Glacier. The service included presentation of folded flags to the family members, the traditional playing of taps, and it finished off with a 21 gun salute.

And two days later, officials from the Army, Navy, and Park Service met at nearby Fort Lewis to discuss recovery options. All experts concluded that the mission would endanger the lives of the recovery parties, and the families of the fallen Marines felt the same way. And they actually wrote a letter after that memorial service, and they stated, quote, it is our wish that the vicinity be properly posted to defeat any efforts of curious and uninterested parties who enter near this hollowed area and that all further activity be abandoned, leaving our sons in the care of our creator. So they kind of unanimously agreed that it was best for everybody involved to just kind of leave it

be and let them. No more lives lost. Right. It's not. That's a really hard and very selfless decision to make because that had to been really hard to not recover your son and your husband and whoever they were to you to know that you couldn't have a proper burial for them. Yeah.

Must have been a really hard decision to make. And I think that was a really selfless decision for them all to unanimously come together and say, you know, we don't want to risk anyone else's lives here. It's been enough tragedy. Yeah. And again, it brings the best. back to the bodies on Everest. Same deal. Same type of thing, you know. So on Wednesday, August 27th, it was announced that all recovery efforts were ceased and that the decision was

approved by the site that it would remain designated as a mass burial ground. Park officials said in response to this decision that no predatory animals or insects are on the glacier at that elevation, so they weren't at risk to be consumed. And that snowfall would begin the next month. So at this point, it's August, end of August. So in September, the snow is already starting up again so that by the next month, the snow is going to begin and it's going to cover the wreck again in snow and ice. And eventually, it'll just be compacted under all of that. So the National Park service placed a bronze plaque with the names of the Marines on a large granite boulder at Round Pass, where that original memorial took place. That's really nice to do that. So Butler, the man who

discovered and led a lot of the recovery efforts and search parties, he was offered the $5,000 reward by the families of the fallen Marines, but he declined it saying that he was just doing his job and that it's part of his duties to report this stuff and he didn't go above and beyond and do anything special outside of his job. So he was, he declined it and he was honored by the National Park Service and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, which is the Department of the Interior's highest award. And he was given a promotion. So good for him. Yeah, that's really nice. It's deserving. Do you know where the money ended up going? I don't.

Did they donate it somewhere? I don't know. I didn't look into that. So that would be interesting to find out. Yeah. So every year on the last Saturday of August, an annual memorial service has been held for the fallen soldiers. In the 1990s, the area where the memorial plaque was originally placed was washed out, making

it really difficult to access. You can access it from what I've read, but it takes like a four- to five mile hike through a lot of washed out areas to get to that original memorial site, which made it really difficult for family members and all that to return to that site. So a replica plaque was approved by the Marine Corps, and it was placed in the foothills of Mount Rainier in Veterans Memorial Park in Enumclaw. I don't know how to say that. I'm not that local yet. So at that time, so in the 1940s, this was the worst accident as far as numbers of people killed aboard a plane in U.S. aviation history. So it was a huge deal. And although we have sadly

surpassed that record, the 32 men who lost their lives on December 10th, 1946, are forever entombed on Mount Rainier. So they're still there and they'll be there forever. I want to makes you look at Reneer in a whole other life. I know. That's why I'm saying, like, I look at the mountain and I'm like, wow, there are, there's a mass burial site there. And these fallen soldiers are just, it's also, I don't want to say cool because it's obviously very sad, but it's a miniature time capsule. Like, these are, this is a moment in time in 1946 that's kind of frozen in the ice. of, you know, the plane, the men, their clothing, like everything. It's just, it's, you know, from that point of view, it's really interesting.

But it is sad, like you said, that families don't have the closure that they need, that, I mean, coming from someone who's lost a family member, not having a place to go to, like, a grave, a headstone or like somewhere that you can go to grieve like a physical location where you can access and know that your loved one is there. It's like a weird gap in the grief process. That's really hard to explain. But so I feel for, you know, people who have lost family members in ways that they don't have that avenue of grieving. I don't know how to put it. But, But like you said, it is nice that they all kind of collectively said, we just want to put the well-being of others who are still alive first. First.

Yeah. Because, you know, like, them being Marines, they wouldn't have wanted anyone to die to save them. Right. To, you know, like, their whole job is to protect and serve our country. And you just know that they wouldn't want other people to die because of them. So as an American with a lot of pride and respect for our military, I wanted to read their names individually out loud. So the first three are the crew members. So Major Robert Riley, who was the pilot that was communicating with the CIA. Lieutenant Cornel Albin Robertson was his co-pilot, and Master Sergeant Wallace Sloanina was their crew chief.

And then there's also Master Sergeant Charles Chriswell, and everybody else listed, their rankings are going to be private. Dwayne Abbott, Robert Anderson, Joe Bainter, Leslie Simmons, Harry Skinner, Lawrence Smith, Buddy Snelling, Stafford, William St. Clair, Walter Stewart, John Stone, Albert Stubblefield, William Sullivan, Chester Tobe, Harry Thompson, Dwayne Thornton, Keith Teish, Eldon Todd, Richard Traigo, Charles Truby, Harry Turner, Ernesto Valdovin, Jean Vremsack, William Wayden, Donald Walker, Gilbert Dwayne White and Lewis Witten. So those are all the members of the crash of 1946 on Mount Rainier. And I know I will remember them every time I look at the mountain.

I'm glad that you said all of their names because hearing it out loud that many people and their names is so much different than hearing a number. Like the amount of time it took you to say all of those names just struck a whole new chord of, wow, there were that many people that died. Yeah, and that many, the web that that creates and that ripple effect through, you know, all of those people were brothers, sons, husbands, etc., to so many different people. And their losses create huge waves throughout a lot of different lives that... Yeah, who died serving our country.

doing their job. And so I don't want to end it on a sad note. So I'm going to just end this with a UFO story because there's one that's related to me. Oh, we're getting two stories today. I didn't know. This is like a surprise out of left field for me. Yeah. So, okay, it's not a whole other story. It's actually connected to this story in a really odd way. And it's just a little snippet. But I just didn't want to end on a really sad note. So here you go, a little. Yeah, we have, we have had a lot of heavy episodes, so yeah. A good UFO story sounds too good. From this tragedy actually came one of the first modern UFO sightings, believe it or not. So a month before the discovery of the crash, amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying for business from Chehalis to Yakima,

and that path leads right past Mount Rainier. So he had to pass right. passed Mount Rainier to get to his destination. And he had heard of the plane wreck. Obviously, it was huge news, the biggest aviation tragedy at the time, and he knew there was a cash reward. So he thought that it was a clear day, and he had a little bit of extra time. So he was going to try and find the wreckage himself. So he went to the area, flew around for a little bit, and obviously came up with nothing. So he started to head back to his destination, and that's when he spotted a series of bright flashes. At first, he thought that they may have been birds, but he quickly realized that they were reflecting the sunlight and were moving really, really fast.

He figured that they were about 30 miles away from where he was, and they were flying at about 10,000 feet and judging by their flight patterns, they were traveling at 1,200 miles an hour, which is nearly twice the speed of sound. And just a little fun fact, the first Air Force pilot to break the sound barrier wouldn't do that until October of that year, which was four months later. Okay, so this hasn't been done yet. Right. To his knowledge, this is like totally out of left field. He has no idea what he's looking at. And he said that he's He watched them really carefully and saw nine objects spread out into a formation and they were emitting pulses of blue light. And they went from Mount Rainier to Mount Adams, which is about a 50 mile distance in just under two minutes.

So whatever these things are, are breaking any sort of normal expectations of what aircraft can do at the time. And he actually compared the crafts to saucers. skipping across water. So when he got back, he landed, he filed a report of his sightings, and he just had assumed that they were some kind of experimental aircraft as there was a military base in the area. I mean, Fort Lewis is right in this area. I mean, when I moved here, everyone's like, are you military? Or are you with someone that's military? It's, and I... For like, why you would move there. Why I moved here? Yeah. And so he just assumed that it was experimental aircraft and that they were just testing out new planes or aircraft or whatnot.

The military was really baffled by his report and the Army and the FBI would actually later interview him because they had no idea what he had seen. And they were actually really impressed by his quote character and apparent integrity. As far as we know, nothing flies that fast except a V2 rocket, which travels at about 3,500 miles an hour, which is what an army. spokesman said in a Washington, D.C. report, and he said that that rocket, it flies too fast to be seen. So. Okay. So it couldn't have been that. It couldn't have been that. Right. So they're really perplexed by his story, but at the same time, they don't discredit him.

So he's not like this wakadoo that came out of left field and is like saying all this weird stuff and clearly mentally unstable. Like, he's a very intelligent person. And this is before Roswell. The Roswell. What's Roswell? Did you just say, what is Roswell? I thought you were saying a person. Okay, never mind.

Okay, I'm like, I really hate to end this friendship right now. But I really almost just, I stopped breathing for a second. Wait a second. Do I even know you? Okay. Sorry. Okay. So, aren't.

Donald never retracted his statements, and even though he didn't enjoy the publicity that followed him following his report, I mean, the newspapers picked it up right away, published his account all over the place, people recognized him, and he did not like it at all, but he also never backed down from what he saw. And he actually did purchase a new telescopic lens for his camera just in case he ever saw anything like them again. And he was quoted in the associate press saying everyone says I'm nuts and I guess I'd say it too if somebody else reported those things but I saw them and I watched them closely it seems impossible but there it is and there is the end that's it very cool that's awesome I've actually heard of other people saying accounts like

similar to that too of seeing like multiple saucer like shapes with lights kind of going in different areas. So I feel like I've heard of accounts that are similar to that. Yeah. And he, I did find a sketch that someone rendered based on his description of the crafts that he saw. So I'll post that as well because it was really interesting. They're kind of like a flat, crescent-shaped type aircraft with different areas that the lights would have been emitted from. And I don't know, I just sounded really interesting. And it was kind of the first modern. day, a report of a sighting. And obviously, Roswell happened very shortly after that, and it kind of exploded throughout the country. But it was a really odd and interesting connection to

the search for the crash. So I thought I'd include it. I like it. That's it, everybody. I hope you really enjoyed today's story. We've had a lot of positive feedback on stories that we've done previously. So if you want to comment on our Instagram, send us a message or give us, you know, send us an email. We would love to hear from you. Or write us a review on Apple Podcasts.

You can follow us on Instagram at National Park After Dark. Or you can find us on Facebook at National Park After Dark. Or you can go on to our website, M-PADD Podcast.com. And you can find our episodes there. You can find our Patreon there. You can also

go to our Instagram National Park After Dark and we have a link right on there that goes to all of our links for our websites as well. So that's probably the easiest way to get to all of our stuff. I think that's it for this week. And in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, everyone. See you next Monday. You're listening to this podcast. So I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty

Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.