New website honors 19 plane crash victims that ‘time forgot’

The Fairchild C-119 military transport plane, nicknamed the “Flying Boxcar”

An undeclared conflict that began in 1950 and ended in a stalemate in 1953, the Korean War is sometimes known as the Forgotten War. Rich Carrara, who grew up in Canton, wants to make sure that the plane crash in Tachikawa, Japan, that took the life of his brother — Air Force Sergeant and radio operator Ernest “Ernie” Carrara — and four others in 1951 is not forgotten.

Assisted by his son Garrett, Carrara has created a website dedicated to the memory of those men: “Discover, Honor, Remember.” It tells the story of two crashes: the C-119 that Ernie was on and a C-46 that went down in the same area just 10 minutes earlier. Fourteen men were aboard the plane, so 19 total were lost that day. The website reflects the 10-year labor of love that Carrara, now residing in Norton, put in trying to track down information about each man.

Collecting the information was arduous because of difficulties presented by red tape, a fire, and passage of time. But Carrara persisted, motivated by empathy for the families of the other 18 men, all of whom, he realized, had suffered as he and his family did.

For years, details about the crash of the C-119 were scant. Carrara, 20 at the time, said his family wasn’t told much besides the date it happened — September 27, 1951 — and assumed the plane had been shot down. In 2010, he wrote an article for the Citizen describing his recollections of March 3, 1952, when Ernie’s body was finally brought home to Canton. Carrara had already obtained some de-classified records through the Freedom of Information Act (originally enacted in 1967 and expanded 1995-1999), but many details were missing.

Through a coincidence, he then discovered that a C-46 had crashed the same day. “I had to know more,” he said. “I decided to get a copy of the classified report on the crash.”

Neither this report nor the one on the C-119 included specific statements about the cause of the crash, but Carrara said there was enough information to rule out the likelihood of enemy fire. It seemed instead that malfunctioning radio homing devices on both planes misled the pilots, causing them to navigate directly toward Mount Tanazawa instead of over it. The reports included the names and ranks of the men who died.

With this list, Carrara embarked on a massive research project to track down as much information as he could about each soldier. (Mostly Air Force, the group included one Navy lieutenant and a British Air Force major.)

Carrara’s initial goal was to learn the hometown of each man so that he could then identify local information sources like newspapers. He discovered, however, that a devastating fire in 1973 had destroyed many records at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. Included in the loss were 75 percent of Air Force records for personnel discharged between September 25, 1947, and January 1, 1964, with names alphabetically after James E. Hubbard.

Using what he had, Carrara proceeded to comb through old newspapers, hoping to collect biographical and military service information and then to contact each family. He said he also found findagrave.com to be very helpful, as the photos of gravestones provided more clues.

Ultimately, he found about half of the families. In some cases, too much time had passed and he wasn’t able to contact a close relative. Some family members did not want to be involved. A son of one of the men initially resisted talking to Carrara but later told him, “We really appreciate it. Now we know what happened.”

Carrara said some of the conversations became very emotional on both sides, and he regrets not reaching all of the families. The website went live in July, and Carrara remains strongly committed to it. He said no one has yet contacted him with more information, but hopes that may yet happen.

Carrara is adamant that the work he’s done isn’t at all about him. “It’s not about me; it’s about the 19 men that time forgot,” he said.

To learn more about the two plane crashes and the crew members of each, go to Carrara’s website at discoverhonorremember.com.

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Posted by Candace Paris on Sep 18 2020. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.