Updated at 2:49 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, 2020 with information from the Thaddeus I. Donlavage family. He was the engineer on the crashed B-17.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
On Feb. 2, 1943, a fiery crash claimed the lives of six servicemen in a farm field outside of Bogue, Kan.
Until recently the crash was only remembered by a few surviving family members and vague media reports from the time.
Mike Boss, 69, of Hill City had read about the crash in a local newspaper when he was younger. About two years ago, the painter and aviation enthusiast decided these brave men needed to be honored for their service and sacrifice.
"I think my statement was, 'By God, that's it. These guys deserve more than that,' " he said.
He set out researching the crash and began a push to have a memorial erected near the crash sight.
At 1400 hours on June 20, a memorial stone was dedicated to the flyers at the McFarland Cemetery, a small township cemetery that overlooks the crash sight.
Members of pilot 1st. Lt. Paul M. Capaccio's family, were able to watch the ceremony from their homes in New Jersey via Facebook Live, including his surviving 98- and 97-year-old sisters, Josephine Marie and Connie.
"Everyone's reactions, including my two aunts, who are Paul's sisters, who are both alive, were overwhelmed that the community in Bogue and Hays and Hill City really remembered these gentlemen and wanted to properly dedicate a memorial to them," Mia Capaccio Pelosci, Paul Capaccio's niece, said.
George Abate, Paul's nephew, said, "It brought tremendous heart-felt feelings of closure. [Paul's sisters] thought it was an unbelievable gesture on behalf of the community."
Paul died before Pelosci and Abate were born, but Pelosci and Abate said the group who worked to research the crash and place the memorial helped answer the family's unanswered questions about the crash.
"This was a haunting, daunting tale that had no closure to it for the last 80 years," Abate said. "It has been a sore spot in our family because we never truly had the facts. Coming from my mother and my aunt, they just felt terrible about this because the way it was reported through the Army that it was basically 50 percent pilot error."
Although the U.S. Army Air Corps attributed the crash in part to pilot error, the official report, obtained by Ellis Librarian Steve Arthur, indicated there were multiple factors that led to the plane going down with the five-member crew and one passenger aboard.
Although Boss only requested information on the single crash, the U.S. Air Force sent over 2,000 pages of reports of crashes from that time, which Boss sifted through to find information on the B-17 crash near Bogue.
The B-17 left Casper Army Airfield in Wyoming on what was to have been a five-hour ferry flight to Tinker Army Air Field in Oklahoma City.
Capaccio's aircraft was a Boeing B-17F, SN 25105. The crew had newly transferred to the 100th Bomb Group, 350 Bomb Squadron based in Sioux City, Iowa.
The rest of the crew included F/O Latimer Lafayette Stewart, co-pilot of California; 1st Lt. Jacob M. Madsen Jr., navigator of Iowa; TS Thaddeus I. Donlavage, engineer of Pennsylvania; SS Frank E. Culver, radio operator of Pennsylvania and SS Heiner M. Bloch, passenger of Michigan.
A major storm with tops at 20,000 feet to ground level, was encountered by a B-24D flown by Lt. Roy Westley near Arnold, Kan, the same day. The storm's effects resulted in a complete bailout and loss of one crew member and the plane in southern Trego County. The Topeka Army Air Field based B-24D crash occurred about 2:35 p.m. on the return trip from near Pueblo, Colo.
According to the reports, it would appear Capaccio experienced the same storm. A last radio report from Capaccio was from Dawson County, Nebraska. They apparently did not follow the assigned flight path to fly directly from Kimball, Neb., to Oklahoma City.
It is possible Capaccio was staying north of the severe storm. He would seemed to have turned south over Dawson County and that path led directly to northeast Graham County, Boss said in his account of the crash on his website.
At about 4:20 p.m., witnesses near the crash site said the B-17F was having engine trouble and flying in heavy fog.
Capaccio was flying southeast, made a turn back to the northwest, climbed into the fog, again turned southeast, came out of the clouds most probably in a slip and powering up, flew into a hill on land owned by the MckIsson family. The site is eight miles north and a 1/2 mile east of Bogue.
The plane broke apart and then exploded on impact. Lee M. Holmes, sheriff of Graham County, arrived soon after the crash. He related the plane plowed a ditch five to six feet deep, 10 feet wide, and around 100 feet long.
Wreckage was strewn over a 15 acre area. Holmes deputized area men to guard the site through the night.
Capaccio's brother, Ben, (Mia's father) was stationed in Dodge City at the time. He traveled to the crash site and gathered pieces of the fuselage, which he kept throughout his life. Mia said he never shared these items with the family. She found the box in his things after his passing.
Although Capaccio was noted for pilot error in the crash, the reported also noted Capaccio had a total instrument flying time of 35:50 in 1942 — a fraction of what would be required of a pilot today, Boss said.
Mia was shocked to learn from Boss that more B-17s crashed in the U.S. than in European combat during the war.
Abate said the facts of the crash vindicate Capaccio and his crew.
"The statement was that 'This is the price of victory,' " Abate said. "Those words etched in my mind, and my cousin and I here and are extremely happy that Mike Boss and the people there not only put this ceremony together, but made statement that the fact that it couldn't have been pilot error.
"My mother and my aunt, I can't tell you how they cried. He was really one of the favored gentlemen in our town growing up. There is relief to the whole thing as well as closure."
Capaccio, the oldest of four children, was known in his small community of Lyndhurst, N.J., for his warmth, scholarship and athleticism, Abate said, and his death was a significant loss to his community.
"He was the apple of my grandmother's eye," Abate said.
He was class president. A sportsmanship award is still given at Lyndhurst High School in honor of Capaccio, who was the last five-sport letterman, lettering in football, basketball, wrestling, baseball and track.
"We are so appreciative and thankful," Abate and Pelosci said of all those in Kansas who supported the memorial effort.
This also included Loren Johnson, who lived about a mile and half from the crash site and was on hand the day of the crash and helped pick up the crash debris. He paid for the stone. The crew at Smith Monuments at Stockton placed the stone. The Rev. Dewey E. Boss officiated the ceremony.
Boss said he hoped the memorial would not only honor the servicemen, but also be a catalyst to bring together the families of the flyers who died that day.
After the monument was erected, the great niece, Lisa Adams and her daughter, Rachael, 15, from Colorado, of the B-17 engineer TS Thaddeus I. Donlavage visited the site.
Adams said via email visiting the monument was an emotional experience.
"The sadness of lives lost too soon. The reinforcement of our pride in Thaddeus for his service. Our genuine appreciation of the efforts to make the monument possible," she said.
"As we drove from the site, we talked about how thrilled our family members who have also passed would have been that we had such an wonderful opportunity to visit this memorial," Lisa said.
Lisa never knew her great-uncle, he was killed before she was born.
She said the family spoke often regarding Thaddeus whom they considered a hero who gave his life for his country.
Thaddeus was remembered as being smart in school, intelligent, earned good grades and was well spoken. He was mechanically inclined. He enjoyed working on motors and had a motorcycle. He worked for the WPA as a summer job where he installed bricks in roads in Luzerne County, Pa.
Lisa's brother Gary Donlavage, named his only son Thaddeus E. Donlavage. The name Thaddeus was selected as a nice gesture. He was named after a family member who was so highly thought of and had their life ended way to soon, she said.
Thaddeus E. Donlavage is a student at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
"We only knew the basics of the crash prior to speaking with Mike Boss," Lisa Adams said. " [We] knew of the bad weather and crash in a Kansas field. His viewing was a closed casket due to the condition of his remains. (Rumors [were] that they questioned if it actually was him in the casket)."
Boss confirmed with witnesses that the crash had been vi0lent and collection of remains difficult.
"Mike Boss provided us with additional significant details including the efforts of the pilot to find a place to land, the other plane crash hours before and the local response to the crash. These were details we never expected to learn after all this time," Lisa wrote.
The efforts of Mike Boss and others to commemorate the lives lost in the plane crash are significantly above and beyond those we normally find in today's society, she said.
"We are honored that these individuals worked tirelessly to get the monument completed for those who lives ended way to soon in a field in Bogue," Lisa said.
Boss said of the monument, "It's having its effect. It may not be something out here that people really get their hands around. It is like Loren (Johnson) said, these guys have been part of this township since 1943, I think it is time we honor them and recognize them, and we did."