John Egeland

19Apr1951 – 18Aug1971

Edison Days

George graduated with the Class of 1969. He was a good student, and popular among his classmates.

Military Service

Rank: Private First Class

Branch: United States Army

Unit: HHC Company – 2nd Battalion – 4th Infantry Regiment

John’s path to the Army is unknown. It is likely that he may have enlisted in the Army, as his draft lottery number (308) was not called.

John was a Mortarman with the Heavy Mortar Platoon – Headquarters & Headquarters Company (HHC) – of the 2nd Battalion – 4th Infantry Regiment stationed near Ludwigsburg, Germany.

In the early morning hours of 18Aug1971 John and 31 members of his platoon we aboard a CH-47 helicopter en route to Grafenwöhr, Germany for a live fire training exercise.

While flying near Pegnitz, Germany at an estimated altitude of between 600 and 1,000 feet, the helicopter suffered a catastrophic failure of a rotor blade of the tail of the aircraft causing it to crash into a wooded area. John, his entire platoon, another member of his battalion, and the 4-man crew of the helicopter were all killed in the crash.

It was the largest loss of Amercian lives during a training accident ever in Germany.

PEGNITZ, West Germany, Aug. 18 (AP)—A United States helicopter carrying American troops to a field exercise exploded in the air early this morning, plunged into a hayfield, and all 37 soldiers aboard died in the flaming wreckage.

It was the worst training accident involving American troops in West Germany since the end of World War II.

The helicopter, a twin‐engine CH‐47 Chinook, was on its way from Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, to the Grafenwöhr training site near the Czechoslovak border. Aboard were a crew of four and 33 members of the 56th Artillery Brigade, a spokesman for the Army said in Heidelberg.

Several hours after the crash military policemen said 12 bodies had still not been found.

Witnesses said the helicopter exploded, lost its rear rotor in flight and plunged about 600 feet, smashing into the earth near a clump of trees. The fuselage burst into flames, scorching a circle of ground about 50 yards in diameter. Military authorities said the cause of the accident had not been determined.

The Army delayed identification of the dead pending notification of next of kin.

Bavarian police who reached the scene less than 10 minutes after the crash, which occurred at 4:45 A.M., said all aboard burned to death. One of the first Germans on the scene said that four bodies were afire when he arrived.

The helicopter crashed in an area of rolling hills about mile from this town of 9,000 people. The crash site was about 500 yards from the heavily traveled Munich‐Berlin autobahn and 12 miles from Grafenwöhr.

German firemen from Pegnitz rushed to the site to fight the flames, which spread to grove of fir trees. United States military police arrived and cordoned off the area.

The rotor that fell off was in a grove of trees about 200 yards from where the helicopter crashed.

A young first lieutenant, dressed in fatigues, a member of the 56th Artillery Group, fought tears as he viewed the scene. “I knew many of the men aboard,” he said. “There sure isn’t much left.”

All that remained of the helicopter was a few piles of smoking ashes, and some metal sheets from the craft scattered over a wide area.

An Army team will investigate the cause of the crash.

The helicopter belonged to the Fourth Aviation Battalion of the 15th Aviation Group stationed in the south German’ town of Schweabish Hall.

Caretaker Gives Account

Hans Raum, caretaker of the City Hall in Pegnitz, said his 14‐year‐old son saw the helicopter go down. He reported that the son had run inside and said that he saw the rotor come off in the air.

Anton Klement, owner of hotel 500 yards from the crash scene, who saw the burning bodies still strapped in seats, said he heard an explosion while he was eating.

“I looked’ out the window and saw the blades of the rearmost engine of the helicopter had been blown away,” he reported. “The forward blades were still turning as the helicopter hurtled toward the ground. The whirling blades sawed off parts from trees before the machine hit the ground and exploded.”

The worst previous training accident involving American forces in West Germany occurred in 1930 when a howitzer shell was fired off target at the Grafenwohr artillery range and landed in a tent area, killing 17 soldiers.

John’s remains were returned to Minnesota for a funeral service on August 30.