Former Laurel Advocate employee tells of WWII airplane crash

In March 1943, Advocate employee Marvin Lawrence wrote an article about two flyers with Wayne, Nebraska, connections who met in North Africa. Following is an abridged version of what he wrote: On Oct. 4, 1942, a four-engined bomber with a crew of nine men was making a routine training flight over this territory. When the giant plane was about three miles southeast of Wayne, one of the motors went dead. Then the other three motor started acting up. The pilot scanned the countryside for a spot on which he could set the plane down while the copilot ordered other crew members to bail out.

Four members of the nine-man crew parachuted to safety. The other five rode the plane down.

They were pilot M.J. Sanny of Ohio, copilot William H. Jones of Texas, radio operator Paul Berry of Kentucky, bombardier Howard Austin of Lincoln, Nebraska, and navigator James B. Sleigh of Massachusetts. All of the men including the pilot were in their 20s.

First Lieutenant Sanny intended to set the plane down in a stubble field but the landing gear failed to deploy. The plane made a belly landing, plowing into the ground and ripping off the engines, wings, and part of the fuselage. Second Lieutenant Austin and Second Lieutenant Sleigh were killed. Pilot Sanny and copilot Jones suffered only minor injuries. A wrecker from Wayne was used to extricate badly injured Berry and recover the mangled bodies of Austin and Sleigh.

When his training was finished, Sanny was sent to North Africa. One day he was talking to another flyer and asked where he was from. “Wayne, Nebraska,” was the reply. “Did you say Wayne?” asked Sanny. I’ll remember that town as long as I live. I lost two crew members there in a forced landing.”

“And so it was,” wrote Lawrence. “A pilot, who only a few months ago, had been training out of Sioux City met a man from Wayne in North Africa. The advent of planes has considerably shriveled distances,” he wrote.

Marvin Lawrence briefly edited the Coleridge Blade and worked for the Cedar County News before joining the Navy in 1944. After the war he purchased a newspaper in Minnesota. Lawrence died in 2003 at the age of 90. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Fort Snelling, Minn. Lt. Colonel Max J. Sanny went on to serve in Korea and Vietnam. He died 1970 and is buried in the Barancas National Cemetery at Pensacola, Florida.

The men aboard the bomber that crashed north of Laurel in 1944 were not as fortunate. All seventeen were killed.

The Commercial Club announced plans to sponsor a Victory Garden campaign for the purpose of promoting home gardening. Plans were being worked out by a committee composed of George O’Gara, Miss Amanda Albers, Miss Helen Weimers, Miss Linda Hank, and Mrs. Josie Shearer.

The fire boys were busy in March. On Thursday, March 17, they were called to the Harry Johnson school fourteen miles northeast of town. Sparks from the chimney ignited the roof. Neighbors put the fire out before the firemen arrived.

On Saturday, March 20, firemen were called to Leo Danker’s service station on Highway 20 at the intersection of what is now the Dixon spur. Danker, who had just purchased the station from Bill Chambers, said he had no idea how the fire started. By the time firemen arrived the building was a total loss. Chambers got the property back, moved a large farm building to the site, and reopened under the name “Chambers Service Station.” Most people called it “The Hoghouse.”

On the afternoon of March 26, the fire department was summoned to the C. E. Ross farm to put out a corn crib fire. This is what happened: Mrs. Ross heard the two dogs barking and saw them running around. Going to the door to see what all the commotion was, she was greeted by the two excited dogs. Then she noticed the corn crib was on fire. She called in an alarm. Thanks to the dogs the building suffered only minor damage. “Up to that time Clarence had a little regard for the two hounds that strayed to his place and called it home. But now you won’t have much luck trying to talk him out of either one of them,” said the Advocate.

Congress had been considering how to deal with the farm labor shortage. One proposal would excuse essential farm workers from military service. The measure would direct draft boards to defer men who were employed full-time in farm production. But Secretary of War Henry Stimson was opposed to farm deferments.

Another proposal by the War Manpower Commission was to fill jobs in defense plants, transportation, agriculture, and other essential industries with less essential workers. These included bartenders, porters, bellhops, nightclub and dance hall workers, and persons engaged in the liquor trade.

Still another proposal was to draft women, children under 18, men too old for the service, and the physically handicapped to fill essential jobs.

Editor Allison commented: “Folks out here are anxiously awaiting the land army that is supposed to solve the food situation. This army is to be made up of women, school children, and elderly men. We hope the scheme works but farmers need experienced help and not a bunch of school boys who don’t even know where milk comes from.”

Wait a minute! City boys know where milk comes from. It comes from bottles or paper cartons. But even the bottle fillers needed help. Hansons Dairy advertised, “If we are to continue in the dairy business we must have help right away.We cannot carry on without help and are willing to pay good wages to someone to help out. Otherwise we will have to close our business.”