Word: crecelius
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With stubby flames spitting from its four jet pods, the B-36 roared down the runway at Carswell Air Force Base outside Fort Worth, Tex., and lumbered heavily into the air. Up in the cockpit, Major Charles E. Crecelius, 30, the plane commander, ran crisply through his in-flight checklist and settled into the routine of a 17-hour combat training mission. He and his 16-man crew had been briefed to fly a series of dogleg courses around the U.S. Halfway through the mission, they would simulate a bombing run on Oklahoma City. Four F-51 fighters...
...just swinging into its bomb run ten minutes from the target when the first fighters flashed down. Major Crecelius' gunners lined up the sights of their radar-controlled 20-mm. cannon. The fighters bored in, slipped under the B-36's tail and banked around for another pass. Suddenly, something went wrong. Screaming down at the "hostile" bomber, an F-51 went out of control, slipped over on its back, and, with a thundering explosion, ripped into the B-36 amidships...
Startled farmers looked up to see the giant bomber split in half and come spinning down in flames from 20,000 feet. Four men tumbled out and parachuted to safety, but the other 13 crew members, including Major Crecelius, were killed. All anyone found of the fighter was a propeller and the pilot still strapped to his seat...
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