B-18 Plane Crash Wreckage - Woodstock, NH

During WWII, German U-Boats along the eastern coast of the United States fired upon and sank 233 American ships through a series of strikes named Operation Drumbeat. These sneak attacks were a tactic the United States was ill prepared for, and which ultimately cost 5,000 men and women their lives. In an effort to thwart them, American planes patrolled the Atlantic coast, but on the 14th of January in 1942, tragedy struck.

Having lost their bearings due to bad weather, pilots of a B-18 Bomber spotted what they thought was the city of Providence through a break in the clouds, and knowing there was an airfield in nearby Massachusetts, set their course north. It wasn't Providence they had seen however, it was Concord NH, and their search for an airfield that did not exist took them into our White Mountains. Their second and final mistake was to dip below the clouds for a peek, where the B-18 began scraping trees until crashing into the side of Mount Waternomee.

75 years later, wreckage from this tragedy still remains strewn about the mountain, and if you're up for a several mile hike with some fairly steep climbing, you can visit this crash scene for yourself.

It was nearly three years ago that I made my hike up Mt Waternomee, and as a guy who once lost his car keys in the pocket of the pants he was wearing, some of the finer details of that trip have escaped me. I was alone - having skipped out of work for a mental health day - and wandered from one chunk of metal to the next, taking pictures of each while trying not to smile.

When you visit a plane crash site in the mountains of New Hampshire, generally speaking, you're not going to find a plane but instead hundreds of pieces of metal. The remains of this B-18 were no different.

Some of the most impressive to see were the twin 1,000 hp engines this aircraft came equipped with.

Six men occupied the plane, and although two of them tragically lost their lives, four survived. According to a sign posted at the site by either family or friends of survivor Craig Fletcher, he went on to live a long and happy life back in California before retiring to Washington State.

I found a shard with a crumpled up star on it, and after spending a little time with Google found this picture of a B-18, which seems to have the same logo underneath the wing.

Unlike most adventures where we will spend a couple of hours enjoying our find, it doesn't take long to feel like you're overstaying your welcome in a place like this. One lap around the wreckage and I was ready to leave.

There are times when I am trying to tell a story and I'm lucky in that my posts seem to write themselves. If I'm describing something fun like an abandoned vehicle or a forgotten mineshaft, I can often knock out a rough draft in just one evening. Plane crashes are a whole other story, and particularly this one. Because so much about it has been written already, I didn't want to just rehash what better researchers and writers have already had to say, and instead tried to make it about my own personal trip. But that's where I kept getting stuck. Normally I try keeping my stories lighthearted and with a few laughs sprinkled in, but when you're standing at a spot where people lost their lives horrifically, there just aren't that many yucks to be had.

On my return back down the mountain I came across this narrow stream, and because I'm easily distracted, I followed it.

It led me to a small but picturesque waterfall, and although the pictures I took failed to come close at capturing its beauty, it nevertheless proved to be just the distraction I needed. After enjoying it for a while, I finished my descent feeling a little less heavy. Now I had it straight - I wasn't just returning home from seeing the remains of a terrible plane crash, I was also returning home from experiencing a wonderful day in nature.