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Survivor StillHas Night maresOf B-52 CrashBy J. SUTER KEGG Contributing WriterParker C. “Mac” Peedin, who was co-pilot on the B-52 bomber that crashed on Big Savage Mountain 25 years ago today, still has nightmares of that harrowing experience. (See Related Story On Page 1)“I don’t ever want to go through anything like that again,” Peedin said in a telephone conversation from his home in Smithfield, N.C. A 29-year-old captain at the time, Peedin, a graduate of North Carolina State University, resigned from the Air Force in 1968 after completing 10years of duty.He served two tours in Vietnam and later became a civilian airlines pilot (Pan Am and Middle East). He still flies, having his own plane, and has been in the timber business in North Carolina since 1980.Peedin relived the harrowing experience of Jan. 13, 1964, verifying what he had told reporters at Memorial Hospital where he was taken after spending more than 36 hours in near-zero temperature and snow waist-deep on Big Savage Mountain. His parachute was preset to open at 14,000 feet and “when that happened it was a most satisfying sensation, as I had never before jumped from a plane.”He inflated the small raft in his survival kit to use as protection against the bitter cold, managed to start a fire that helped him keep warm and catnapped until daylight when he woke up with four or five inches of snow on top of him. He said he fired a survival rifle (.22 Hornet) periodically without results. It was then that he decided to stay where he was, hoping that Tuesday would bring better weather.“Fortunately, the plan worked,” he stated, “because Tuesday broke sunny and clear.” He heard rescue planes in the air and the first one he saw was a civilian craft — 370 Charlie. “The pilot spotted my chute which w'as hung up in a tree and not too long after that rescuers got to me,” he added.“Please tell all of those fine people in your area that I think of them a lot and think a lot of them,’’ the 1964 crash survivor requested. “I will never forget the expert treatment I reMONUMENT — This monument was dedicated July 4. 1964 on the outskirts of Grantsville, calling attention to the B-52 crash and recognizing the efforts of those who aided in the search for crew members of the drowned airplane. The monument was a project of the American Legion’s Mountain District.ceived in Memorial Hospital, especially that ministered by Dr. Richard Schindler. He impressed me as a man thoroughly dedicated to this profession.”Peedin said he pians to pay a return visit to the area, much as he did July 4, 1964, when he and Maj. Thomas W. McCormick took part in a ceremony dedicating a monument on the outskirts of Grantsville calling attention to the crash and applauding the efforts of those who aided in the search. The monument was a project of the American Legion’s Mountain District.“Gen. Swancutt of SAC was the chief speaker at that ceremony,” Peedin said, “and he arranged to have a B-52 fly overhead as an official Air Force salute to the wonderful people in yourarea.”
Newspaper Details
Cumberland Times News
Cumberland, Maryland, US
Fri, Jan 13, 1989
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
MD, USA 15 Jan 2020
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