Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This winter friendly cache is placed NEAR the site of the Sebena air crash. Although you can drive to within 10 miles of this cache, it is a very difficult cache to get to,it will require the use of an ATV (or skidoo in winter). The last mile you will have to hike.
On 18 September 1946 the Belgian Sabena Airways four engine DC-4 aircraft OO-CBG with forty-four persons on board crossed the Atlantic and was scheduled to land to refuel at Gander Airport in Northeast Newfoundland. Air Traffic Control lost contact with the airliner. After determining it had not landed elsewhere, ATC declared an emergency and contacted the Coast Guard Air Detachment Operations Center for assistance.
The Coast Guard Air Detachment, Argentia, launched PB-1G (B-17G) 77247 and PBY 5As 34008 and 48314 to begin a wide area search. PB-1G 77247, under command of LT(jg) Charles E. MacDowell, searched an area at sea where reports had been received of a possible crash. PBY-5A 34008, under command of LCDR James N. Schrader, and 48314, commanded by LCDR Larry L. Davis, searched inland, centering on Gander Airport.
An inbound TWA flight located the possible crash site about 60 miles from Gander and remained overhead until PBY-5A 48314 reached the scene and confirmed it was Sabena OO-CBG, and that indeed there were survivors. The area was heavily wooded and the ground proved to be a very large bog. As the aircraft could not land at the crash site, emergency aid supplies were dropped by parachute to the survivors. Plans were formulated to rescue the survivors. A PBY-5A, with a US Army Medical Team under the command of Captain Samuel P. Martin from Ft. McAndrew at Argentia, was landed at Wolf Lake, about five miles from the crash site. With experienced woodsman from Gander Airport personnel, Dr Martin and the medical team began the hazardous trip down a river from the lake to an area near the crash site. Dr. Martin?s team then made their way by foot through the boggy area to the DC-4 and the survivors.
Dr. Martin stated that many of the severely injured would not survive the rugged overland up-river trip and that some other way had to be found to extract the survivors and rescuers The Coast Guard decided to use helicopters to carry out survivors. The nearest helicopters were located at the Coast Guard Air Stations, Brooklyn, NY and Elizabeth City, NC. In fact, these were the ONLY helicopters still operating in the USCG at the time.
Helicopters were just out of their infancy in 1946, moving into the kindergarten stage. This would be their first large scale rescue which helped prove the helicopters amazing capabilities. The fabric covered HNS-1 39051 and the metal clad HOS-1 23470 were disassembled. Along with the pilots, maintenance personnel and spare parts, the disassembled helicopters were loaded onto two USAAF C-54 aircraft for the flight to Gander Airport. They were reassembled and tested. This part of the operation took less than forty-eight hours.
Meanwhile, the two PBY-5As dropped more supplies including tents, medical supplies and lumber at both the crash site and Gander Lake. The lumber was used to construct platforms for the tents and for the helicopters to land upon so they would not sink into the bog.
With the helicopters reassembled at Gander Airport and flown to the crash site and Wolf Lake, pilots CDR Frank Erickson, LCDR Stewart Graham, LT Walter Bolton and LT August Kleisch, on repeated flights between the crash site and Gander Lake, rescued the survivors. The eighteen survivors were placed in wire stokes litters attached to the outside of the HNS-1 helicopter and inside the hastily modified HOS-1, then flown one at a time to Wolf Lake where they were further stabilized by the US Army Medics. The survivors were then loaded into life rafts, towed out to the PBY-5A on the lake, taken aboard the amphibian and flown to Gander Airport where they received more detailed medical care. The helicopters and PBY-5As made numerous trips before all eighteen survivors were rescued and flown to Gander Airport.
The rescuers buried the twenty-six fatalities there at the crash site, now officially known as St. Martin in the Woods in honor of Captain Samuel P. Martin, M.D., U.S. Army Medical Corp, who had so tirelessly tended to the injured. A memorial has been erected at the site with plaques listing the survivors and fatalities, and honoring Captain Martin.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)