1957 — June 13, US Army Truck Skids into Piney Ford Creek, Fort Campbell, KY — 14

— 14 Middlesboro Daily News, KY. “14 Soldiers Die at State Army Camp.” 6-14-1957, p. 1.
— 14 The Robesonian, Lumberton, NC. “Ernest J. McNeill [Obituary].” 6-17-1957, p. 4.

Narrative Information

June 14: “Ft. Campbell, Ky. (UP) — Fourteen soldiers of the storied 101st Airborne Division died pinned under a truck which plunged 25 feet into a creek Thursday. Nine others were injured. A spokesman from the Ft. Campbell public information office said some of the men apparently were drowned and others crushed to death when the big truck skidded off a gravel road through a guard rail into shallow Piney Ford Creek. ‘We don’t know yet just how they died but an investigation is already underway,’ a spokesman said.

“Pvt. Ronald J. Curtis, 21, a Kalamazoo, Mich., who escaped with his face bloodied from cuts, said survivors held the heads of trapped men above water to keep them from drowning. Curtis said only about three of the men got out from under the wreckage. A helicopter had to be used to lift one end of the truck off the bodies of the other men.

“The one and one-half ton Army truck was returning 25 men of the 101st from field training when it skidded on a curve in hill country near the Kentucky-Tennessee border and hit the rocky creek bed. Curtis said he felt the truck ‘swerving to the right’ on the curving downgrade but said ‘I thought the driver would bring it out of the skid – then I saw the bridge come up.’ Curtis said even then he thought it was only ‘a pretty good scare, nothing serious,’ but the next moment he ‘had a falling sensation followed by a thud, not a crash.’ ‘There was a feeling of pressure against us. Everyone was being tossed around. There was no panic, no screaming, no yelling. My left leg was under someone and my head was under water. I wrenched free and got out somehow.’

“The nine injured including Curtis, none believed badly hurt, were taken to the base hospital.

“The soldiers were returning to within about nine miles of the base after several days of field training when the tragedy occurred.” (Middlesboro Daily News, KY. “14 Soldiers Die at State Army Camp.” 6-14-1957, p. 1.)

June 17: “Funeral service for Ernest J. McNeill, driver of the army truck in which he and 13 other soldiers were killed at Ft. Campbell, Ky., Thursday, will be held Tuesday at 3 p.m. from South Lumberton First Baptist church. Burial will be in Elizabeth Heights cemetery….The truck plunged from a road and overturned in a shallow stream and many of the deaths were attributed to drowning.” (The Robesonian, Lumberton, NC. “Ernest J. McNeill [Obituary].” 6-17-1957, p. 4.)

Sources

Middlesboro Daily News, KY. “14 Soldiers Die at State Army Camp.” 6-14-1957, p. 1. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=57058478&sterm

The Robesonian, Lumberton, NC. “Ernest J. McNeill [Obituary].” 6-17-1957, p. 4. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=101426379&sterm