Military Team Tragedies - Part 6

While more than 500 ballplayers have lost their lives in military service not all have been isolated incidents. On a number of occasions, a military baseball team, usually in transit from one place to another, has suffered fatalities. Here is the sixth of a seven part series describing some of these tragedies.

Dutch Harbor Tragedy - 1947

In August 1947, the Dutch Harbor Army-Navy all-star softball team. (made up of seven Navy players from the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base, Alaska, and six Army players from nearby Fort Mears) were playing in an Alaska-wide tournament held at Kodiak on Kodiak Island. Team players included Y2C William R. Loftus (an amateur outfielder from Omaha, Nebraska), T/5 Delmar E. Nowak of Alpena, Michigan, T/5 Angus MacKay of Detroit and M/Sgt. Jacob R. Swander (a 12-year Army-man from East Altoona, Pennsylvania). Swander's 3-year-old son had been scheduled to make the trip with his father because the team's catcher had a broken thumb and couldn't play. At the last minute, the catcher decided to go and Swander's son lost his seat on the plane to Kodiak Island. 

After the tournament finished, the 13-man team left Kodiak on August 6, at 0626 hours to make the 600-mile journey to Dutch Harbor aboard a U.S. Navy Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina flying boat. The PBY had a crew of five plus two other Navy passengers as well as the team. Pilots Lt (jg) William H. Zeigler and Lt (jg) Nave A. Fuliehan made their last report at 1045 hours about 150 miles from Dutch Harbor. After that, the PBY was never seen or heard from again.

A major search was conducted in the hope that the plane might have made a safe landing in sheltered waters along the route, with its radio damaged. Joining the search were transient aircraft and military planes from Fort Randall, Fort Richardson, Kodiak and Adak. The Navy cargo ship USS Sussex, enroute to Adak, was sent to the area to direct the surface operations, in which Coast Guard vessels and the Navy fleet tug USS Potawatomi participated.

All searches failed to locate anything that might indicate what happened to the PBY. A year later, with still no trace of the plane or passengers, all 20 passengers were declared dead. Ironically, many of the Navy personnel were due to have been discharged from service three weeks after the tournament. Some years later, wreckage that washed ashore at St. George Island, Alaska, is believed to have come from this plane.