Gum Springs Bombing Range Accident Memorial

On March 3, 1945, a B-17F from the III Bomber Command at Alexandria struck trees in bad weather during low-altitude training, about a mile and a half from the Gum Springs Bombing Range, and all eleven aboard died. They were 2nd Lts. Russell Cobbs, Robert Keavy, Omar Lauridsen and Bruno Wieclaw; T/Sgt. Alexander Harwood III; Sgt. Harold Bush; Cpls. Lester Smejkal, Jay Crites and Niels Anderson; and PFCs Bruce Rue and Millard Beaird. Three were nineteen. The forest they flew over was cutover pine land the Forest Service bought and made into Kisatchie National Forest in 1930.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A reconstruction of the 1716 French fort beside the Natchitoches village, with a palisade of nearly 2,000 pine logs, a chapel and storeroom, and living-history programs, open Wednesday to Sunday.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — 21 mi
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.
• Natchitoches Historic District — 21 mi
  The riverfront blocks of the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, founded in 1714 at a Natchitoches village, with a brick-paved Front Street, Cane River frontage and the largest bousillage construction in the South.
• Melrose Plantation — 23 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.

More markers nearby

• William Edenborn — 7.0 mi
• Huey Pierce Long — 8.6 mi
• Bank of Winnfield & Law Office of Huey P. Long — 8.7 mi
• Earl Kemp Long — 9.1 mi