16 Apr Captain Walter Irving Lawson
And now … for the rest of the story! On March 29th I posted about Lt. Col. Monroe F. “Buddy” Stamps and the B-50 crash at Offutt Field on February 26, 1952. Buddy survived the crash, just barely, but five of the crew members did not.
Walter I. Lawson in flight school
When I internet searched for a newspaper report of the accident, I happened to come across a message on a Korean War forum. The son of Walter I. Lawson was searching for more details about this terrible crash which had caused the death of his father.
Walter Irving Lawson already had his pilot’s license when he joined the 99th Flying Pursuit Squadron, better known to all of us as the Tuskegee Airmen. Lawson went overseas to North Africa with the 99th’s first group of pilots and according to the book The Tuskegee Airmen: The Men Who Changed a Nation, he distinguished himself as one of their most aggressive and daring pilots.
It was not long after World War II was over that Lawson, along with Monroe F. “Buddy” Stamps was called to serve in the Korean War where they were part of the 343rd Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron. After two years abroad the crew was finally flying home on the 25th of February 1952. They left Hickman Field in Honolulu early that morning. As I described earlier, when they landed at Offutt Field in Omaha at 2 am the next morning the plane hit a mound of dirt on the runway. There was a fiery explosion. Twelve crew members were injured. Five died immediately.
Captain Walter Irving Lawson is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. When his beloved wife and the mother of their three children died in 1994, she was buried there too.
Yesterday afternoon the family of Captain Lawson was able to talk to Buddy Stamps on a conference call. For the first time, they heard the details of the day their father died.
As his son had explained to me, “This accident has haunted our family for more than 60 years …”
They asked questions. Buddy answered. Tears on every phone line. Buddy was able to correct some misinformation the family had been given through the years. There is no one to blame, Buddy insisted. The crash was just a terrible accident. “The price of warfare for a bunch of young men, playing a deadly game at a deadly time.”
The two families made plans to exchange photos and to keep in touch. Mission accomplished.
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