Rev. Roger Cochran offers a prayer during a Tuesday, Aug. 25, ceremony honoring the lives of 15 servicemen who died in a B-24 Liberator crash on Aug. 25, 1945, in the mountains about 20 miles outside of Elgin. The aircraft was returning home following World War II.

ELGIN — For a moment on Tuesday, Aug. 25, Lee Graham, a La Grande World War II veteran, felt as if the weight of 15 young servicemen was on his shoulders.

The 15 men who died before their communities could recognize them for who they were — World War II heroes.

Graham was attending a ceremony saluting the servicemen aboard an American B-24 Liberator coming home to the Northwest. The big plane crashed in the Blue Mountains of Union County, 17 miles northwest of Elgin, on Aug. 25, 1945. The 15 aboard had served in the European Theater, and each died in the accident.

The ceremony, at the site of the crash, included the formal presentation of an American flag by members of the Third Battalion, 116th Cavalry of the Oregon National Guard, to Graham, who represented the 15 servicemen. Graham acknowledged he felt a responsibility to represent the servicemen with honor after receiving the flag, which in turn he will give to the Union County Museum.

The responsibility he feels in representing these 15 servicemen and World War II veterans, overall, is becoming greater, he said, because the number who can speak for them is diminishing.

“I feel like this is the end of the line. We are losing so many World War II veterans,” he said.

The 15 fallen veterans, all members of the Army Air Corps, were Capt. Edwin F. Zdunczyk, the pilot; First Lt. Carleton H. Keeler, co-pilot; Second Lts. R.B. Wright, navigator, and G.C. Oesterreicher, bombardier; First Lt. J. Kagel; Technical Sgt. F.G. Emmelmann, radio operator; Sgts. F.G. Emil Eckert. Paul E. Kleiner, and M.M. Pickell, all engineers; and gunners Staff Sgt. R.B. Walters and Sgts. A.H. Brundahl, B.G. Fletcher, A.P. Lupisella, T.R. Frasier and R.W. Johnson.

Seventy-five years ago the crew departed Sioux City, Iowa, and was returning to its home base in Walla Walla, Washington. After stops in Casper, Wyoming, and Boise, Idaho, the flight was on the last leg to Walla Walla with another B-24 Liberator following.

Over La Grande, the pilot of the ill-fated B-24 crew mistook the lights of the town for those of Pendleton. This caused the pilot to get off course, reduce his altitude and crash into the Blue Mountains, according David L. McCurry, author of “Aircraft Wrecks of the Pacific Northwest” and among those who attended the ceremony.

McCurry said the second B-24 was bound for Walla Walla as part of a formation flight. It was following the plane that crashed because its navigation equipment was not working. It almost went down as well, but its pilot, First Lt. Horace W. Lehman, managed to pull up just in time, but not before clipping some trees that damaged a wingtip. The plane later landed safely in Walla Walla, where its crew reported the crash in Union County.

The B-24 crashed Aug. 25 at about 11:30 p.m. A search flight found the wreckage Aug. 26 at 10 a.m. Ground parties did not reach the site until 4 p.m. that day, said Armen Woosley of La Grande, who helped organize the ceremony.

Rich Cason of Elgin attended the Aug. 25 ceremony. He said he was 9 years old when he went to the crash that morning 75 years ago with his father, who directed traffic at the site as a state road department employee.

“There was junk everywhere and (military police) were all around,” said Cason, now a retired educator.

Cason said he still remembers seeing a leg from one of the victims being buried at the site.

The meadow the B-24 crashed in appears barren today, but look closely and small poignant remnants are around. Pieces of pottery from England remain. Woosley said he believes the pottery may have been gifts the servicemen were taking back to their families. It is a symbol of the men’s humanity, the memories of which Woosley, McCurry and many others at the ceremony want to revive.

“These men could easily have been heroes if they had made it home. Instead they are forgotten. I want to help keep their names alive. That is my purpose,” McCurry said.

The author said the timing and and the youth of the victims multiples the magnitude of the tragedy.

”They had just survived the war and then this happened,” McCurry said. “They had their whole lives to live.”

The crash, just eight days before WWII ended, was one of 52,651 stateside aircraft crashes during the course of the war, which in all claimed 14,903 lives, according to Lyle Schwarz of La Grande, who helped organize the ceremony. McCurry said the accidents probably reflected the limited navigation equipment planes, such as the B-24 Liberators, had. All pilots essentially had for guidance were altitude indicators and magnetic and radio compasses.

B-24 Liberators also were difficult to fly because their flight controls lacked good hydraulics and required considerable strength to operate, Woosley said. McCurry said this problem was compounded by the need to have smaller men flying B-24s so that they could more easily move around inside the bombers.

”Being small was a big help,” McCurry said.

What caused the crash near Spout Springs remains unknown, but investigators have determined the path of the crash. Woosley said it first hit trees, and then plowed into the landscape, creating a trench that bulldozers later filled in with dirt. Today, the former trench likely has bits and pieces of human remains. Much else also is buried there.

“It is truly a gravesite,” Woosley said.

The crash site today is relatively inauspicious, but McCurry said he hopes someday a memorial with a plaque honoring the 15 servicemen who died there can be installed.

”It would be appreciated by the families (of the victims),” McCurry said.

About 80 people attended Tuesday’s ceremony, including about 30 from the National Guard. Rev. Roger Cochran, the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, provided opening and closing prayers and the invocation. Cochran spoke of the steep price we have paid for our freedom and how nobody has paid a steeper one than the victims of the crash — men who were on the cusp of new beginnings.

”They were so close,” Cochran said, “yet so far.”