Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 054-2 - April 2000 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-02-28 12:22:56 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:01 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:01

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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NCHS Bulletin April 2000 aimed at Mill and Main Street. It was almost a direct hit. Instead it landed on the Roosevelt Cafe about one business away. George Wilson of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co retrieved it. It was a message of farewell to their Grass Valley friends, asking that they keep the homefires burning and they would do the best to do their job so they might come back and finish their vacation. Many of them would not survive the ravages of war. Dutch Plane Crashes in Grass Valley by Cliff Bowen Or” THE AFTERNOON OF JUNE 2, 1945, Grass Valley residents heard a familiar sound. A B-25 Mitchell was flying low over the city. Recognizing the familiar sound and look of this airplane, many of the residents were certain that a group of Dutch fliers had safely returned from the Pacific. The plane made one low pass over the intersection of Mill and Main and was climbing up the hill toward the west. It just took seconds for tragedy to strike. The plane grazed a huge pine tree and lost a wing. The pilot of the plane must have been struggling mightily to control the damaged aircraft. Losing altitude the pilot fought the plane towards the only uninhabited area nearby, the Boundary Mine. Descending toward the mine property, he clipped a house, slicing through the second floor. The plane then went through a garage and crashed in a fiery burst with a thunderous roar. The plane had reached the Boundary Mine and was fully engulfed in flames. Those first on the scene could see three of the crew that had been thrown from the plane, but could do nothing to help, as the fuel fire had engulfed them. They were forced to retreat to the sanctuary of the nearby waste dump. It was 4:20 p.m. For the residents of Pleasant Street, Chapel Street and the Gold Hill area the sky was ablaze. Flames were immediately consuming the huge pine grove adjacent to the mine. Residents of the area were calling the fire department to respond. Fire Chief Clare Hughes had witnessed the crash and had turned in a signal alarm and was of the first to the tragic scene. He radioed the police department to control traffic to the area. Responding to the fire the Grass Valley Fire Department was assisted by equipment from both Nevada City and the Division of Forestry. The fire had spread through the Boundary Mine, across Butler Street and was burning the vacant orphanages of the Catholic Church, as well as an old chapel and other outbuildings. This complex suffered a total loss. Other than the grove of pines and the church property, no other fire damage occurred. As the flames subsided just before dusk, the bodies of four crewmen were removed from the aircraft by Army and Army Air Corps personnel. Major M. L. Cotton, McClellan Air Field public relations officer and Brigadier General Oscar B Abbott of Camp Beale had responded, 2 each bringing a large number of troops from their respective bases. Ambulances came from McClellan and military police from Beale. As local residents had suspected, the pilot of the plane had been one of those who had visited a year-and-a-half before. Lt. Senior Grade R. Basenau, Netherlands Navy, was the pilot. A widow and child in Australia survived him. The copilot, First Lt. B. J. DeVries, Netherlands Army, had married an American girl at McComb, Mississippi in 1944. Lt. Senior Grade C. C. Jaeger, Netherlands Navy, had married an American girl in May of 1944. The radio operator, Sgt. Raden Soejipto, Netherlands Army, was a single man. They are all buried at the National Military Cemetery at San Bruno. Lt. Basanau had been to Grass Valley in May, hoping for a three-week stay, but after six days was recalled to McClellan Field. He returned on a one-day pass to shop at local stores, buying clothes and other items for his wife and daughter in Australia. His job was a transport pilot of the lend lease equipment from the United States to the combat front. Lt. DeVries and Jaeger were members of the second group of Dutch Pilots to visit the Grass Valley area. The path of the tragedy was well marked. On its final run over the city, the plane clipped the top of a tall tree on the Smith property, popularly know as “Sleep Place” (506 Walsh Street, previously owned by George Sleep). A large limb of the tree was hurled, with every bit of bark scraped -™~ off it, along with pieces of a wing and a heavy piece of the «4 plane assembly, onto the sidewalk in front of the Chandler Church home at 513 Walsh Street. The sidewalk stopped the progress, so the debris ended up on the lawn and not into the house. A section of the plane’s wing landed, draping a fence, on the Lynn Williams property at the corner of Walsh and Pleasant Streets (303 Pleasant Street). The plane, losing altitude and out of control, then sliced through the second story of the Somers home, exposing the entire second floor, at 324 Pleasant Street. This house was later relocated to Carpenter Street. The plane then hit the garage and rear part of the Richards home at 326 Pleasant Street, completely destroying a car parked in the garage. The vacant Saint Patrick’s Home for Boys and the Saint Vincent’s Home for girls, along with a chapel and other buildings that had burned to the ground, was a large complex on a seven-acre parcel bounded by Fawcett, Brighton, Walker, and Minnie Streets in Grass Valley. The Orphanage founded in 1866 by the Sisters of Mercy had moved to Brighton Street in 1878. In 1932, because of the age of the buildings, the orphanage was moved to Sacramento. Although the buildings had become run down, they were still used as a summer camp for the youth in the Sacramento Orphanage, and as a retreat for the Clergy of the diocese. It was a credit to the skill of the pilot and crew, and luck, that there were no casualties other than the four crewmen. a