B-24J Bomber Crash

The squadron these ten belonged to went on without them. The 866th was part of the 494th Bombardment Group, which had trained at Wendover Field in Utah and finished at Mountain Home in Idaho; the group was at Barking Sands in Hawaii from June 15, 1944, eight days after the crash. Its first elements landed on Angaur in the Palau Islands on October 16, it entered combat on November 3, 1944, and in June 1945 it moved to Yontan airfield on Okinawa, where it stayed until December. The 866th was inactivated on January 4, 1946.

What the plaque says

B-24J Bomber Crash During World War II Nebraska was home to eleven air bases, which filled the sky with planes engaged in training aircrews. On June 7, 1944, fifteen B-24 bombers departed from the Lincoln Army Air Base en route to the west coast. During a thunderstorm B-24J #44-40758 caught fire, descended to 500 feet, and began circling the town of Chappell, Nebraska, when it exploded about two miles southeast of here. All personnel aboard were killed instantly. The ten airmen who made the supreme sacri- fice while serving their country were: 2nd Lt. Donald S. Wallace, Peculiar, MO; 2nd Lt. Colon A. Holland, Waynesboro, MS; 2nd Lt. Frank K. Duffey, Cranford, NJ; 2nd Lt. Paul E. Rose, Mammoth Springs, AK; M/Sgt. William E. Webster, Oneonta, NY; S/Sgt. Robert E. Rogers, Camilla, GA; S/Sgt. Vance C. Johnson, Stromsburg, NE; Sgt. Bernard T. Clark, New York, NY; Sgt. Ralph A. Young, Anadarko, OK; and Sgt. Peter L. Zambuto, Rochester, NY. All were members of the 866th Bombardment Squadron (H), Seventh Air Force. Deuel County Historical Society Chappell V.F.W. Post #7002 Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Julesburg — 13 mi
  The town that moved four times: a trading post, a stage stop burned in 1865, the wickedest end-of-track town on the Union Pacific, and finally Denver Junction renamed.
• Ash Hollow State Historical Park — 23 mi
  The emigrants' spring below Windlass Hill, six miles from the Blue Water Creek camp where Harney's soldiers killed eighty-six Lakota in 1855, and where their belongings came home in 2025.

More markers nearby

• Historic Lodgepole Creek Valley — steps away
• Fort Sedgwick — 9.6 mi
• Lodgepole and the Union Pacific Railroad — 9.6 mi
• Old Julesburg — 12 mi