Bubba and the PT-19 Crash

Bubba told me that he and his girlfriend flew his PT-19 to Greenville, Mississippi (her hometown), by following the Mississippi River, to see her parents. They flew under the Eads Bridge between St. Louis and East St. Louis at the start of their trip.

Upon landing at the local airfield to refuel and tie down for the night, he overheard this young white boy say to his father, "daddy, I didn't know niggers flew airplanes." Bubba said the man jerked his boy so hard that he started to cry. Rather than leave his plane at the airfield, he decided to fly to her farm. Fearing that someone would tamper with the airplane overnight, and taking on a full tank of gas, they flew on to the farm. Bubba told me of a picnic that her father gave for his daughter the following day. He told me that all of the nearby farmers came over to see up close an airplane for the first time. He told me that the barbecue was so good that he wanted to stay forever in Mississippi.

The next morning Bubba, using a farm field, gave her family their first ride in an airplane. Her father, a very large man, wanted to fly. Bubba said the man was close to 300 pounds in weight and wanted to tell him no, considering the full load of fuel he had on board. He decided to try anyway. Bubba said he taxied to the very end of the field, headed into the wind, held his brakes and applied full power, dropped his flaps, and released his brakes and started to roll. At midfield with its tail up, the 19 hadn't reached takeoff speed and the trees bordering the field grew closer. The 19 raced towards the trees as she became airborne, but Bubba realized that clearing the trees was impossible, so he cut his power, turned the magneto switch to off, and told the passenger to "bend over and cover your face." Ten feet off the ground, the 19 flew into the trees, both wings ripped off, and the nose dug into the soft dirt as the propeller broke off and went flying. They were lucky that neither were killed and the plane didn't catch fire.