1941 — Dec 25, bus crashes into fuel oil tank in yard after car collision, St. Louis, MO– 10
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 9-19-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–10 AP. “Ten Perish in Flaming Bus Wrecked in St. Louis.” Joplin Globe, 12-26-1941, p. 1.
–10 NFPA. Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, V. 35, N. 4, Apr 1942, p. 396.
Narrative Information
NFPA. “Fires in Which There Was Loss of Life.” Quarterly, V. 35, N. 4, Apr 1942, pp. 396:
“December 25, 1941, St. Louis, Mo. Ten persons died and twenty-two others were injured when a passenger bus crashed into a 200-gallon fuel oil tank in a yard, after colliding with an automobile. The oil storage tank burst, enveloping the us in flames. Passengers stampeded for the exits, but many were trapped with the rear door became jammed shut.” (NFPA. “Fires in Which There Was Loss of Life.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, 35/4, Apr 1942, pp. 396.)
Newspaper
- AP. “Ten Perish in Flaming Bus Wrecked in St. Louis.” Joplin Globe, 12-26-1941, p. 1:
“St. Louis, Dec. 25. – (AP) – Shrieking and screaming in the quiet of Christmas morning, 10 persons suffered an agonizing death and 22 others were injured today in the flaming wreckage of a bus. Some of them had come from the peace of midnight mass at St. Vincent’s Catholic church. Another was a sailor on leave from the navy.
“The Public Service Company bus collided with an automobile, careened off a parked car and, hurtling the sidewalk, smashed through a 200-gallon fuel oil storage tank in a yard. The oil tank exploded, enveloping the bus in flames as it plunged into the brick wall of a tenement.
“Terrorized passengers stampeded for the exits. Telling of panic-stricken efforts to fight their way out of the bus, Mrs. Margaret Berthold, one of the least injured, said the rear door jammed after she made her escape. ‘I don’t remember getting out,’ she related, ‘but I did and then the door slammed shut and the others trying to get out couldn’t open it.’
“Two witnesses of the accident, Albert Homer and Edward Jones, were credited by police with preventing a larger fatality toll. They broke several windows and pulled seven persons to safety.
“The identified dead, as listed by police, were:
John Soukup, 17, St. Louis.
Walter Wroughton, 55, driver of the bus.
Mrs. Frances Gloss, 72, a widow.
Joseph Vulchick, 50, her son-in-law.
Edith Feck, 43.
Delores Reiwachneider, 15.
Alfred C. Crane, 41.
William J. Hassel, 64.
Robert R. Ware, 19, Siloam Springs, Ark., a sailor on leave from the Great Lakes naval
training station.
Mrs. Teresa Wright, Kansas City.”
Sources
Associated Press. “Ten Perish in Flaming Bus Wrecked in St. Louis.” Joplin Globe, 12-26-1941, p. 1. Accessed 9-19-2024 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/joplin-globe-dec-26-1941-p-1/
National Fire Protection Association. “Fires in Which There Was Loss of Life.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, V. 35, N. 4, Apr 1942, pp. 396-397.