Miracle Over Yoakum: The 1951 B-29 Bomber Crash
By Murray Montgomery
It was a cold morning, by Texas standards, on November 30, 1951. The temperature was about 50 degrees with drizzling rain as most folks in Yoakum were sleeping. However, that sleep abruptly ended sometime after midnight when a loud, booming sound nearly shook them from their beds.
The blast was heard all across the area, and people rushed from their homes to search for the cause of the explosion. They had no way of knowing that the tremendous blast nearly rocking them from their beds was caused by the crash of a B-29 bomber.
Flying out of Randolph Field in San Antonio, the bomber had an engine catch fire near Yoakum. All members of the crew bailed out before the large bomber crashed and exploded on the L.T. “Buster” Burns ranch about six miles southwest of town. The entire 11 members of the B-29 crew survived, with only a few minor injuries.
According to an article in the December 4, 1951, issue of the Lavaca County Tribune, Yoakum city police and firemen started the search after receiving a call from Clem Peters who owned a farm southwest of the city. Soon, cars were speeding in all directions, up and down every country road in the area. No one knew yet what had happened.
There was a lot of speculation as to what caused the blast. Some folks thought a butane tank might have exploded, while others figured that a steam rig from one of the oil wells in the area had blown up.
The official searchbegan under the direction of City Manager Reuben Koether, Constable John Coyey, and a few others. It began southwest of town where a glow of light could be seen in the distance. However, people searching were soon lost in the darkness. The large amount of undergrowth and brush prevented them from being able to see the glow. Some gave up and returned to their beds.
Meanwhile, other searchers were more successful, such as Kenneth Hagan, Fire Chief Elmer Hanna, city police, and many others were busy rounding up crew members who had parachuted to safety. The crew gathered at Quast’s Cafe, at the intersection of Highway 77 and 111.
Randolph Field was notified, and around 5:00 a.m. Friday, a large search party of Air Force personnel arrived at Quast’s Cafe, where the search was started, and they thoroughly questioned the crew.
The paper reported that two Air Force personnel were on the scene and one of them, Major Simon, walked up on the smoldering remains of the giant bomber around 10 a.m. The location was about two or three miles south of Edgar. The scene was described as being a completely devastated, blackened swath, about 150 yards wide and some 500 yards in length. This description of the crash and terrible explosion which accompanied it, shows the power of 6,700 gallons of 130 octane aviation fuel going off at one time.
The blast had scattered pieces of the bomber 100 yards in every direction from the original crash site. Three larger parts found were two motors and half of the landing gear, complete with two undamaged tires. The Air Force lost no time in placing air policemen in charge of the area to prevent anyone from carrying off anything valuable that might be lying around.
The pilot of the B-29 gave more information about the flight plan. Before graduating from training, the crew took their giant bomber off from Randolph Field and headed towards Yoakum. That city was the first checkpoint in the 300-mile, 14-hour flight, which was to take them from Yokum to Brownsville, across the Gulf of Mexico to Naples, Florida, and then over a return course to the field.
Captain Victor K. Klein, 30, of Tempe, Arizona, and pilot of the bomber told this story: “We were approaching Yokum at 8000 feet when a fire was reported in our number three engine. We executed routine fire procedure, but the fire continued to burn. I immediately gave the order to bail out.”
The first crew member to land touched ground near the four radio towers along the Yoakum Concrete Road, while others were picked up along the same road over a distance of two miles. Captain Klein, being the last to leave the bomber, was also the last to be brought in. He was picked up on the Stratton Road by a Humble Oil Company crew in route to Yoakum.
The good news from this incident is that no one lost their life. If this plane had crashed into a community, the results would have been devastating.