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 last of a seven part series describing some of these tragedies.
Bryan Air Force Base Bus Crash - 1955
On August 26, 1955, the Bryan Air Force Base baseball team was traveling by bus to a tournament at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. On the Bryan team was S/Sgt. Frederick A. LeClaire, who had pitched for the Goldsboro Cardinals in 1950. About three miles from Cushing, Texas, the bus blew a tire and plunged over a 30-foot embankment into a dry creek.
The injured managed to crawl out the windows or were helped out by rescuers. Trapped in the wreckage and fatally injured were A/1c Lloyd D. Buresh, a young ballplayer from Karlin, Missouri, and the driver of the bus, A/1c James C. Kirkpatrick of Buff City, Tennessee. Both died at a Nacogdoches hospital shortly afterwards.
Fred LeClaire was among the 13 others who were injured, four of them critically. However, there were no further fatalities.
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