Georgia Backroads Magazine Article by Ron Cobb

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SUMMER 2022 • VOLUME 21, NUMBER 2| TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Along the Backroads: Who We Were, Who We Are How we handle the complex history of Louisville's Old Market will reveal much about what we are becoming. BY DANIEL M. ROPER • JEFFERSON COUNTY Vanishing Georgia: The Treason of Aaron Burr Each time Vice President Aaron Burr came to Georgia he was in distress or under duress. BY DANIEL M. ROPER • WASHINGTON COUNTY & STATEWIDE A Circuit Rider's Wife Goes to War During the opening months of hte Great War, famed Georgia novelist Corra Harris served as a war correspondent in Europe. BY RAY CHANDLER • ELBERT & BARTOW COUNTIES Plane, Crane, Truck, Train A cascade of unforeseeable events led to a convergence of conveyances at a railroad crossing in Chamblee in 1948. BY WILLIAM R. COBB • DEKALB COUNTY

Soul of a Southerner 22 A southerner fondly writes her memories of growing up and living in the South. BY MARY ANN ANDERSON • GEORGIA Historic Rural Churches of Georgia: The Good Book For one hundred years, the most influential printed work in our state's history 23 was surprisingly scarce. BY CLAYTON H. RAMSEY • STATEWIDE Still Rising in Dalton: The Spriti of "Dear Ole Emery" Thousands of historical treasures are housed in a newly refurbished school 28 building that is now the Emery Center. BY DR. ELIZABETH HOOLE MCARTHUR • WHITFIELD COUNTY Another Bottle of Belle's A family's roots in Augusta include two men who pioneered the city's brewery 34 and soda businesses. BY BILL BAAB • RICHMOND COUNTY The Picture Show 38 A well-meaning but unfortunate family "casts" a young boy in its drama. BY WILLIAM NOBLE • DOOLY COUNTY Old Charley, the Fifer 39 Charles Benger's long, notable life earned the respect of his fellow veterans and Macon's citizens.

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Georgia Backroads Magazine - Georgia history, scenic attractions and So...

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BY DR. FAY STAPLETON BURNETT • BIBB COUNTY Top Ten Novels About Georgia Revisit our 2009 ranking of the best novels set in Georgia, showing each writer's 42 aptitude at painting pictures with words. BY DAN ROPER • STATEWIDE Between a Rock and a Hard Place Born in Georgia, a businessman in New York City, and owner of plantations in 46 the Confederate States, Leroy M. Wiley endured a strange and complex Civil War. BY DR. CAROLE E. SCOTT • HANCOCK & BALDWIN COUNTIES Some Family Legends are Just That A writer investigates why his great-great-grandfather's gravestone faces the 49 wrong way. BY JEFF O'BRYANT • WHITFIELD COUNTY A Dismal Howling of the Wind 51 The 1804 Hurricane wrought devastation on coastal Georgia, killing scores. BY S.T. LANTER • GLYNN & McINTOSH COUNTIES Genuine Georgia Backroads: Benevolence to Fort Gaines Quaint towns, striking architecture, and rich history characterize "frontier 55 Georgia." BY DAVID B. JENKINS • SOUTHWEST GEORGIA Civil War Portrait Colonel Edward C. Anderson of the 7th Regiment Georgia Cavalry was 61 wounded and captured but escaped. BY DAVID W. VAUGHAN • CHATHAM COUNTY SUBSCRIBE | Home | Gifts | Back Issues | Books | Advertise | Contact Us Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Advertise

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Plane, Crane, Truck, Train

ike a few million other Americans locked down due to Covid-19 for much of 2020, I searched for useful things to do. I managed to check off quite a few things around the house that were on my wife’s “honey do” list. But I soon tired of the physical labor and found myself spending a lot of time at my computer. I remembered that I had collected a good deal of information about my father, Raymond O. Cobb Sr., in the years after his death in 1993. His papers included two items of particular interest: a stack of six-inch note cards on which he had outlined the major events of his life and a three-page, handwritten narrative of his experience surviving a 1948 airplane crash. The note cards were much like the outline of an autobiography. He used them in a talk to his Sunday school class the year before he died. The plane crash narrative was a chilling account of what happened and how he felt after bailing out. He had never shared these details with his children. Raymond’s life story is impressive to his children, grandchildren, relatives, and friends. But his story is not unlike those of thousands of World War II servicemen

LIA BY WIL

N” R. “RO

who grew up poor and ultimately succeeded in life after learning to work hard and persevere on the farm and in the war. Raymond was born in South Georgia in 1917 and grew up in a family that sharecropped land on which his father was overseer. He told many stories of the hard times his family endured during the Depression years, particularly after his mother passed away in 1937. As a young man, he planted and picked cotton and other crops on shares, tended the essential family vegetable garden, raised and slaughtered cows and hogs, drug chains to measure land for the county, delivered newspapers, and did about anything else that would put food or money on the table. Times were hard then in South Georgia. After marrying in 1938, he ultimately landed a job as a U.S. Department of Agriculture county agent in Bleckley County, but then left in 1943 to join the Navy. After being discharged in 1945, he returned to that position, but in 1947 rejoined the Navy in the Active Reserve in Atlanta. He served in the Navy Reserve until 1965, when he retired with 22 years service. As an active reservist, he remained at Naval Air Station Atlanta for 16 years and was finally transferred to

California, where he retired after making Master Chief Petty Officer, E-9. There was one episode in his Navy career that was remarkable in many respects, and unique. It was an airplane crash he barely survived in 1948, and the almost unbelievable aftermath in which a plane, a crane, a truck, and a train all converged to occupy the same space at the same time in a small town in Georgia. Here are the details. On January 10, 1948, almost one year to the date from his re-enlistment and arrival at the Naval Air Station Atlanta, thirty-year-old Raymond took off as a crewmember on a twin-engine Beechcraft Bonanza, SNB-1, for a routine training flight to Chattanooga and Tullahoma, Tennessee. The weather was great for flying: sunny and clear, temperature around 40 to 50 degrees, winds of ten knots, and twelve-mile visibility. Aboard were the pilot, Lieutenant Andrew M. “Mickey” Ernst, co-pilot Ensign Julius M. Elrod, my father, and another enlisted man named Scott. Raymond was on this flight as Machinist Mate to obtain his flight time and earn flight pay of $50 for that month. For the pilot, Lt. Ernst, who lived in

COBB

A PLANE, A CRANE, A TRUCK, A TRAIN HISTORY

nearby Roswell, this was a trip into familiar territory, as he had earlier worked as a flight instructor at William Northern Field in Tullahoma and knew the area well. He was experienced, having logged more than 2,600 hours as a Navy pilot, including 375 hours in this model of the Twin Beech SNB-1. The co-pilot, Ensign Elrod, was experienced as well, having only recently changed jobs from Delta Airlines in Atlanta. The SNB-1 departed NAS Atlanta at 10:30 that Saturday morning and made a normal landing in Chattanooga at 11:15. It departed Chattanooga at noon and landed in Tullahoma at 12:30 p.m. The weather was clear, with 20 to 25 knot winds out of the north-northwest. During the landing, as Ernst gently lowered the tail of the SNB-1, he discovered that the tail wheel had failed to extend, causing the tail of the SNB-1 to drag loudly on the tarmac. Ernst reported minor damage to the plane’s vertical stabilizers and rudders. Lt. Ernst notified NAS Atlanta Operations by phone and Assembly & Repair officers and crew were promptly dispatched to Tullahoma, arriving there at 2:30 pm. The damaged rudders and stabilizers were patched, and a sheared pin found on the tail wheel cable was repaired as well. Before taking off again, the second crewman, Scott, reportedly decided to hitchhike back to Atlanta, perhaps shaken by the rough landing at Tullahoma. At 3:55 p.m., pilot Ernst, co-pilot Elrod, and my father took off again and

climbed to 5,000 feet over the Tullahoma airfield. After levelling off, Ernst lowered the landing gear and flaps, did a normal stall, and tested all controls thoroughly at slow cruising speed. All flight characteristics were normal, so Ernst climbed up to 6,200 feet on course to NAS Atlanta and began to level off. As air speed began to build up, Ernst reported that the control column felt sluggish. As air speed reached about 140 knots, the yoke came all the way back into Ernst’s lap and the plane went into a series of violent gyrations that included at least two complete loops and a hammerhead stall. Co-pilot Elrod reported that he heard a loud cracking sound just before the plane went into the first loop. The pilot quickly passed the word to Elrod and Cobb to put on harnesses and parachutes and get out. Co-pilot Elrod made it back from the cockpit to the cabin and passed up a parachute and harness to the pilot. Elrod would later say that he “got to the rear of the cabin somehow and passed Ernst’s chute and harness up to him. I got my chute and harness on and released the cabin door. All this time the plane seemed to be going through a series of violent climbs, dives, and stalls. I assisted Cobb in putting on his chute and harness....” At 3,300 feet, Ernst reported that he “was able to get the plane under partial control through use of individual throttles and found he had good aileron control. The nose had strong tendency to approach vertical with any power at all so had to use only very little power. The elevator tab had no effect whatever. After

plane began doing combination of oscillating stalls and knife flight, airspeed stayed between stalling and 80 knots and by using aileron and low side throttle kept the plane fairly level. Headed the plane for open country.” Co-pilot Elrod jumped out first at around 1,200 feet and Raymond jumped next. Pilot Ernst later stated: “I argued with Cobb to make him jump before I did and he left the plane at about 800 feet. By the time I jumped the plane had gone down to about 500 feet.” Even with the assistance of co-pilot Elrod, Raymond was only able to attach one of the two leg straps of his parachute harness before jumping from the plane. He pulled the rip cord as soon as he was clear of the plane, not waiting the normal ten seconds, as he realized that he was not very high up. “When the chute opened,” Raymond later said, “I felt relieved. The shock of the opening chute was much less than I expected.” He later told his children that he pulled the metal rip cord handle on his parachute so hard that it broke the attachment cable, and the handle came completely off in this hand. That was not the usual action, as the handle was designed to remain attached by the cable to the chute bag after deployment. Raymond held on to that loose rip cord handle all the way to the ground and then carried it with him to the hospital. That handle with the broken cable still attached would remain for years in his collection of Navy service memorabilia. As his open parachute began floating

GEORGIA BACKROADS / SUMMER 2022

downward, Raymond looked up and was relieved to see that the pilot had bailed out and that his parachute had opened safely. Then, watching the plane, Raymond saw it make a circle to the right and come flying back toward him as he stared in disbelief. It looked as if the pilotless plane was going to hit him in mid-air, so he began to slip his parachute to the left, attempting to get out of the path of the plane now flying toward him. While still descending, he watched as the plane crashed into the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees, with the right

A PLANE, A CRANE, A TRUCK, A TRAIN HISTORY

wing and nose hitting first. The time of the impact was reported to be 4:10 p.m. Then, still floating down in his chute, Raymond looked towards the ground and found himself only a few feet away from landing. He had only seconds to prepare for the impact, which was on the uneven ground of a recently plowed cotton field. On impact, his left ankle turned sideways, hard enough to cause a painful fracture of the ankle bone. Pilot Ernst would later report that Raymond’s shoe came off during his jump and that contributed to the broken ankle. Realizing that his leg was severely injured, Raymond remained at the spot where he landed in the cotton field until help arrived. Co-pilot Elrod, who jumped first, landed in the small, unincorporated town of Estill Springs, Tennessee. He reported that he “wrote out a message to be phoned in to NAS Atlanta by the first man to reach me, while I got another man to take me to the scene of the landing of Ernst and Cobb who were near the wreckage.” Pilot Ernst reported that the plane

crashed about one mile west of Estill Springs, and that both he and Raymond parachute-landed “only a matter of feet from the wreckage.” Both Ernst and Elrod noted that the elevator was completely missing from the wreckage, and thus had evidently broken off in midflight causing the initial loss of control. The official report stated that a thorough search of the entire flight area was conducted, but the missing elevator was never found. After the crash, my father was taken to a local hospital by some residents who volunteered the use of their car. Dr. Jack Farrar of Tullahoma, who examined him there, advised that his broken ankle needed a specialist’s care, so he went by ambulance to Thayer General Hospital in Nashville, less than eight miles away. At that time Thayer General was a Veterans Administration Hospital. Pilot Ernst and Co-pilot Elrod got a ride into Estill Springs, where they arranged for the local Boy Scout Troop 103 to guard the wreckage until the salvage crew arrived from Atlanta. They stayed in Tullahoma that night. The next afternoon, officers from NAS Atlanta arrived. Ernst and Elrod accompanied them on the return flight to the Atlanta base. My father spent a few days at Thayer General before being transported to the U. S. Navy Hospital in Dublin, Georgia, where he remained for five months. Fortunately, his ankle recovery would be complete, with no lasting physical effects. The next morning, Sunday, January 11, a salvage crew from NAS Atlanta arrived to reclaim the wreckage of the aircraft. The equipment included a 24-ton truck with crane to hoist the wreckage onto a flatbed truck. The salvage crew loaded what was left of the wings and fuselage onto the truck. Then they hoisted the mangled wing and tail assembly onboard and fastened them securely. Lastly, they gathered up the engine remains and smaller pieces of wreckage scattered around the cotton field, and loaded and secured them onto both of the transport trucks. The salvage convoy then began the

Malone’s As fate would Twisted pieces of train, crane, truck, have it, the Navy and plane wreckage were scattered along truck-crane was still both sides of the tracks for several hunon the northbound dred yards in front of Chamblee’s main rail. The Navy crew business district. Fortunately, the Navy from Literary Lantern Press was using its cable in crew had jumped from the crane and the www.malonesmaps.com a frantic attempt to flatbed truck as soon as the crossing get the flatbed truck lights began flashing. They were unhurt and its cargo of air- and no bystanders or people in town craft wreckage off were injured. slow, two-hundred-mile journey back to the southbound rail. In their haste, they Passengers aboard the New Yorker NAS Atlanta. The trip was fraught with failed to notify Southern Railway of the had to climb out of the windows of the potential dangers as the two-lane high- rail blockage and did not send anyone overturned rail cars, and for hours after way, U.S. 41, crossed several mountain down the tracks to flag down the milled about the disaster site, along with ranges with steep grades and multiple approaching train. Likely, they were local spectators. Fortunately, only five switchback curves. The convoy also went unaware that a newly instituted train serv- passengers suffered injuries. They were through several small-town squares that ice to New York was due to arrive at 7:30 taken to Lawson General Hospital, weren’t designed for such large, heavy p.m. where their injuries were found to be truck traffic. With a loud crash heard for miles minor. The next day the Atlanta All went well until the convoy arrived around, the New Yorker plowed at nearly Constitution reported that DeKalb within a mile or so of NAS Atlanta at full speed into the stationary 24-ton County Police were investigating a report around 7:00 p.m. on January 13th. To truck-crane, still attached by its cable to that a Marine Corps prisoner aboard the reach the entrance gate to the Navy base, it the flatbed truck loaded with wreckage. New Yorker had escaped in the confusion was necessary for the two large trucks to go Both trucks were demolished. On impact, of the train wreck. Four days later the through the downtown area of the city of nine of eleven cars and the diesel engine of Constitution reported that a $75,000 lawChamblee. At that point, the road to the the New Yorker were derailed. Three of suit had been filed by Southern Railway base crossed two Southern Railway train the passenger cars were torn from their against the federal government, alleging tracks that were above the highway grade, wheels and toppled over onto their sides. negligence on the part of the Navy crew. so traffic had to cross slowly and carefully. The big diesel engine and one baggage car In addition to compensation for damage The truck-crane crossed the railroad tore away from the front of the train, to the cars and rails, the suit also asked successfully, but the flatbed truck carry- jumped the rails, remained upright for $15,000 in legal fees. ing most of the aircraft wreckage “bot- between the north and south rails, and Thus ended the saga of the first crash tomed out” on the first track and became continued on for several hundred feet. of an aircraft from NAS Atlanta, which firmly stuck. The crane truck then backed up onto the second railroad track and its crane cable was attached to the lodged flatbed truck. In this manner, the Navy crew hoped to dislodge the flatbed truck and tow it on across both tracks. At seven p.m. the new Southern Railway northbound train called the “New Yorker” departed Atlanta’s Terminal Station. This service began just ten days earlier, to provide overnight travel to Washington, D.C., and New York. It was much heralded in the Atlanta press, which touted its air conditioning, reclining seats, lounge, Pullman sleepers, and multiple dining cars. After a brief stop at Peachtree Station at 7:10 p.m., the “New Yorker” had about six miles to gain speed The 1906 Classic Revival house Raymond O. Cobb before reaching the Chamblee grade Sr. bought and renovated in Hawkinsville. crossing around 7:30 pm.

Literary & Historical Maps of Georgia

GEORGIA BACKROADS / SUMMER 2022

Master Chief Petty Officer, E-9, Raymond O. Cobb

occurred just eighteen months after the Naval Air Reserve Program was established. A train, a crane, a truck, and a plane all converged to occupy the same space at the same time, and all were demolished or seriously damaged. The Official NAS Atlanta Aircraft Accident Report, AAR 1-48, completed on form NAVAER-339 and filed after the accident, gave many more details about the plane crash. In service since 1942, this Beechcraft SNB-1 had accumulated 2,479 flight operating hours. Both the airframe and the engines had been overhauled in 1947. The report concluded: “Investigation reveals no connection between the minor damage sustained the landing at Tullahoma and the failure of the elevator in flight after takeoff.... Failure of all elevator hinges approximately 5/8’ back of the horizontal stabilizer is evident and obvious: the cause is indeterminate. The possibility of the elevator being installed under strain and leading to metal fatigue and subsequent failure is an assumption....” All Naval Air Stations were notified in February of “two recent accidents where

A PLANE, A CRANE, A TRUCK, A TRAIN HISTORY

elevator assemblies were lost from SNB aircraft while in flight.... The breaks in the fittings are identical.” This notice required immediate inspection of elevator hinges on all SNB aircraft and follow-on inspections after every 120 flight hours. A handwritten note in the file dated two days later stated: “This is not an isolated case. SNB-JRB aircraft sustaining similar failure in the past have, without exception, had an entry in the airplane log covering a landing with the tail wheel in the retracted position.” Near the end of the accident report a section titled “Effectiveness of Special Equipment Used” included this statement: “Parachute saved lives of all personnel.” As a result of their lifesaving parachute descents, my father, Lt. Ernst, and Ensign Elrod received membership in the Caterpillar Club, an international organization that honored servicemen whose lives had been saved by a silk parachute. Ernst also received accolades for his skill and his ingenuity in regaining enough control of the falling plane, using only his two engines and ailerons, to allow all aboard to successfully bail out. After retiring from the Navy Reserve in California in 1965, my father moved back to Marietta, where he worked for a time at Lockheed on the C-130. In 1971 he founded the Cobb-Darby Realty Company in Smyrna with friend Glen Darby, a retired Air Force master sergeant. Dad retired again in 1988 and moved to Hawkinsville, where he bought and renovated a 1906 Classic Revival house, the largest in the city. As a child in overalls, he often rode by that same magnificent house on Jackson Street while taking sharecropped cotton to the gin in his father’s mule-driven buckboard. He told his own children that when seeing that splendor as a youngster, he would always think: “If I could ever own something like that some day, my life will have been a success.” Raymond O. Cobb Sr. died at home in Hawkinsville on October 5, 1993, peacefully but disappointed as he watched the Braves losing to the Phillies

in Game 1 of the National League playoffs. Truly, the silk from the caterpillars that saved him in 1948 allowed his childhood dream to come true. Ron Cobb is a retired engineer and business consultant who now spends much of his time researching, writing, and editing history books and articles, mostly on baseball and the Civil War. He has nine books to his credit.

Sources 1. April 1, 1948, handwritten narrative by Raymond O. Cobb describing his experience in the SNB-1 crash of January 10, 1948, and its aftermath. Mailed from the U.S. Navy hospital in Dublin, Georgia, and submitted to the Switlik Parachute Company to gain membership in the Caterpillar Club. 2. February 11, 1948, Application for Caterpillar Club membership submitted by Lt.(jg) Andrew M. Ernst, containing his handwritten narrative of the SNB-1 crash of January 10, 1948. 3. Official Aircraft Accident Report, NAVAER-139, for the January 10, 1948, crash of the Beechcraft Twin Beech SNB1 in Estill Springs, Tennessee (National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland). Typed narratives of the crash written by the pilot and co-pilot are in this file, as are photos of the crash scene and wreckage. 4. The Flight Plan, Naval Reserve Newsletter, Naval Air Station, Atlanta, article January 30, 1948, pages 1 and 2. 5. U. S. Navy Service Records File for Raymond O. Cobb from the National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri 6. The Nashville Tennessean, January 11, 1948, Page 11A 7. The Tullahoma News and Guardian, January 15, 1948, and January 19, 1948. 8. The Atlanta Constitution, January 11, 1948, page 3B, and January 14, 1948, pages 1 and 2. 9. The Atlanta Journal ads for the “New Yorker” train service from Atlanta to New York December 30, 1947, and January 14, 1948.