This is the second version of the cache I published last month but chose to move to a new location. It is about a mile and a half from the previous location. Please be considerate of the local residents and please no night caching in this area.
On the afternoon of Saturday July 18, 1942 a US Army Air Corp B-17 Flying Fortress bomber with a crew of ten was en-route from its base in Newfoundland to an airbase near Philadelphia. They developed some type of problem, possibly structural damage, maybe weather related, and needed to land as soon as possible. Unfortunately this summer afternoon was not a bright sunny day but rather a misty foggy day with very low visibility. The charts showed a small airstrip in North Reading that may have been their destination. Instead the large plane emerged from the low clouds into a wooded area and started to break up as it hit the tops of the tall pines. It crashed in the area just north of North Reading High School leaving a debris field 200 feet long and large fire as the fuel and ammunition on board burned. There were no survivors. The area was quickly cordoned off by Fire Department and State and Military Police Officers and due to wartime security considerations (the plane was equipped with the new, Top Secret Norden Bombsight) no details of the flight were released.
The incident gradually passed in to obscurity until November 1995 when the North Reading Veterans Committee decided to include it in the planned updating of the memorial honoring local casualties of war. A bronze plaque with the date and names of the ten crew members was dedicated that Veterans' Day. The crash site was cleared of debris and now there are streets and houses covering the area and no evidence of the incident remain.
I hid this cache in a nearby wooded area that looks similar to how the crash site looked at the time.
The posted coordinates will take you to the memorial on the town common. Locate the plaque and use that info to complete the puzzle. The plaque has two lines of text followed by two columns of the names of the ten crew members. There are images of the plaque available on-line if you are in a hurry.
Final is located at N 42 34.ABC, W 071 02. XYZ
A= Fourth letter of the first name of Lieutenant Andrews.
B= Fifth letter of the first name of Master Sergeant Jester.
C= Last letter in second line of text.
X= Second letter in first name of Private Koltun.
Y= Second letter of first name of Staff Sergeant Perkins.
Z= Second letter of first name of the pilot. Lieutenant Klyce.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.