Some of the soldiers and airmen who boarded a Greyhound bus in Waco in the wee hours of Monday, Aug. 4, 1952, were probably weary from their weekend leaves and settled into their seats for a nap on the way to San Antonio.
And on a northbound bus south of Waco on U.S. Highway 81, lit by a full moon, were a few military men as well, perhaps dreaming of their arrival in Dallas to the arms of wives and sweethearts.
The two buses filled with business travelers and vacationers, as well as these airmen and soldiers, collided just before dawn, about 7 miles south of Waco, in a transportation tragedy that made the record books in that era.
A total of 28 people died in the impact that scattered bodies across the highway and ditches, or in the ensuing inferno of exploding gas tanks. That 25 passengers survived what the first police officiers on the scene termed “a vision of Hades” was deemed a miracle by many, according to Waco Tribune-Herald archived stories, which initially reported that 29 people were killed.
Several of those who escaped with their lives credited some of the military men with keeping cool heads in the ghastly chaos to guide them out of the deathtrap.
Milburn Berry Herring, 24, a young father who had recently left the employ of the Jones Fine Bread Co. of Waco as a shipment driver, was at the wheel of the northbound Greyhound.
Helming the southbound coach was B.E. “Billy” Malone, 23, also a Waco resident and a driver with six months experience.
Investigators with the Interstate Commerce Commission later concluded that Herring, who had been on the job just five days at the time of the collision, likely had dozed off just north of Lorena when he crossed the center line to strike Malone’s vehicle head-on.
Regulators noted that Herring already had worked several cross-state runs in his first four days at work for Greyhound.
One of Malone’s passengers, Leonor Morales Zamudio, had shouted “Look out!” at the glaring oncoming headlights, but it was too late. She and her new husband, long-time Elite Café cook Hilario Zamudio, were killed in the collision, according to Tribune-Herald archives.
Leonor’s daughter, Matilda Ledesma, 10, was trapped in the wreckage but was freed by a young black soldier, as was a drive-in waitress named Dora Mae Athey Daniels, a 17-year-old bride from Corpus Christi who grew up in Waco.
Reba Campbell, a reporter for the Waco Times-Herald, wrote:
“In all the burning Hell, an unknown hero, a Negro soldier, returned time and time again to the burning buses and knocked out windows to drag passengers to safety.”
Campbell reported that several survivors lauded the courage of their rescuer, who had initially been thrown free but chose to continue crawling through the flames to aid strangers.
Rhonda Dandridge, of Durham, N.C., said she believes the grandfather she never met was one of those unrecognized heroes of that terrible day.
She said she grew up as a child listening to the whispered conversations in the next room about the heroic black military man lauded in the media in 1952 for saving several lives.
Dandridge’s mother was just a toddler when Staff Sgt. Emual Henry Robinson spent weekend leaves in San Antonio, but rode the Greyhound back to James Connally Air Force Base, where he was assigned to the 65th Medical Squadron, 3565 Medical Group.
Her grandfather, a bookish fellow known in the family as “Snooks,” was on the northbound bus, returning to his duty station.
But he never reported in, his commanders told the newspaper, and it took military forensic specialists several days to identify his remains.
“I never got the chance to meet him, because of what he did that day,” Dandridge said in a recent telephone interview. “But I want people to know there was a name to go with that story.” The Times-Herald reported on several heroes in the days after the tragedy as their stories became better known:
An Air Force sergeant named Shelton; Airman 3rd class Joe Crutchfield, 19;
PFC Charles R. Moncrief, 21, of Midland; and,
Leslie Tyler, a 27-year-old waiter who worked at the Green Tree Café.
The remains of the dead sent to the Compton Funeral Home of Waco for identification.
The wreckage was hauled to the yard of the (now defunct) Mosley Machinery Co.
Saturday 17 August 2013
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/waco_history/military-men-who-survived-a-bus-crash-crawled-through-hell/article_9c5094bb-21e8-5282-9693-8349375f6a5b.html?mode=image&photo=0
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