Site of B-17 Crash

Dyersburg's crews were trained for combat, and the training killed. The field's first fatal accident came on April 17, 1943, when a B-17F crashed in a landing accident three miles north of the airfield. This Carroll County crash followed less than four months later. In all, 114 crewmen lost their lives at the base. Second-phase flights sent full crews out on bombing, gunnery and instrument missions, and third-phase flights added formation work. The 451st Bombardment Group, the only group trained here as a unit, left for North Africa that November.

What the plaque says

Site of B-17 Crash Approximately 7,700 crewmen received final B-17 training at the Dyersburg Army Base in Halls, Tennessee, the largest combat aircrew training school built during the early years of World War II. On a foggy morning, August 9, 1943, eight brave crewmen, during a local training mission, perished in a fiery crash in the adjacent field. Their new B-17F suffered structural failure rendering it uncontrollable. Part of the tail structure was found over a mile away by Lake Isable.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Patsy Cline Crash Site Memorial — 16 mi
  An engraved rock off Mt. Carmel Road near Camden marking where a small plane carrying Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins went down on March 5, 1963.
• Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge — 23 mi
  A 51,000-acre refuge along Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River, created in 1945 for migratory birds, with a visitor center in Springville and a drowned Archaic site nearby.
• Big Cypress Tree State Park — 25 mi
  A small floodplain park on the Middle Fork of the Obion River, named for a bald cypress that stood 175 feet tall before lightning destroyed it in 1976.
• Paris Landing State Park — 30 mi
  A Kentucky Lake state park on the site of a Tennessee River steamboat landing, created after the 1944 TVA dam drowned a sulphur-spring resort.

More markers nearby

• Bethel College — 4.3 mi
• Hale Junior High School — 7.0 mi
• Camp Tyson — 8.9 mi
• Isaac R. Hawkins — 9.5 mi