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ARCO, Idaho — Roberta Armstrong has had a good life but still wonders from time to time how it would have been different had her father lived.
Lt. Robert W. Madsen, of Minnesota, died in a training crash 80 years ago at what's now known as Idaho National Laboratory. It was a training ground for World War II aviators in the early 1940s.
He was 28 years old when he died.
Armstrong never met her father and grew up hearing stories about him from her mother, Dana Madsen.
Dana Madsen had created two scrapbooks of her late husband that are several decades old.
"She would tell me these stories, and they always had the visual aid of these scrapbooks that she had kept," Armstrong said. "After her husband died, her plan was to join the Army Corps. But she discovered she was pregnant, and that was me. My name being Roberta is probably pretty obvious. That was my dad's name, Robert."
Commemoration event
On June 29, the U.S. Department of Energy Idaho Operations Office hosted a commemoration event at the Idaho National Laboratory to honor seven crewmen who died the night of Jan. 8, 1944.
When Armstrong was invited out to honor the crew on its 80th anniversary, she and her husband looked at each other and said, "We've got to go!"
They traveled from New Mexico to attend the event at a laboratory fire station. There was a moment of silence, a presentation of colors, a background of the crash and a historian who spoke.
Armstrong talked at the event, shared what she knew about her father, and mentioned her mother had died 10 years ago.
"I'd like to think she is here in spirit," she said.
Armstrong brought one big scrapbook about her dad to show people at the event if they were interested. Inside, there were orders to come to Pocatello, condolence cards, a letter from the chaplain in Pocatello and lots of family pictures.
"He wanted to be a pilot, but I'm not sure what the story is. He either flunked out of pilot school or something. So, navigator was something that he was put into. He graduated from the navigator school down at Hondo (Texas) in November of '43 and almost immediately was transferred to Idaho for bomber group training," Armstrong said.
There was even a flight log in the scrapbook.
"There's eight hours in it. Four hours were in a trainer, and another three hours were in two different versions of a B-24, and then an hour and five minutes was in the B-24J, which crashed," Armstrong said.
What happened on the night of the crash
During the height of the war in 1944, bomber groups and fighter squadrons flying out of the Pocatello Army Air Base regularly blasted practice areas on what was then known as the Naval Proving Ground west of Idaho Falls.
On the night of the crash, Madsen was the navigator on a B-24J Liberator (#42-73365) as it attempted a bombing run.
According to the Army's official report, the bomber left the Pocatello Army Air Base, now known as the Pocatello Municipal Airport, just after 8 p.m.
Their training was in preparation for their assumed deployment to support the Allied effort in World War II.
Nicholas Holmer, an archeologist at the Idaho National Laboratory, said it was dark and clear that night. There was a slight southwest wind, which is typical in Idaho.
He said there were a series of bombing and training ranges that were associated with the air base.
"Two of them are on the (Idaho National Laboratories). They were on their way to one of those for a nighttime training run, and something catastrophic happened," Holmer said.
The mission was to drop practice dummy bombs on the Arco High Altitude Bombing Range. This is located on the site. The tower operator reported seeing the plane at 8:50 p.m., and at 9:05 p.m., after the plane made three passes at 20,000 feet, the operator reported seeing a flash and hearing an explosion.
Sheepherders near Middle Butte saw the plane trying to gain altitude before going into a spin.
"One of the tail rudders came off of the aircraft, and it just ended up plummeting down, and it was so violent, it burned instantly, and none of the crewmen were able to escape," Holmer said.
Although the cause of the crash was never determined, pilot error was not suspected, Holmer told EastIdahoNews.com.
"Historic documents indicate that the preflight checks by the mechanic found the aircraft to be sound and ready for flight. Standard medical checks of the crew also found them to be well rested, in good health and in good spirits," Holmer said.
A crash team from the air base removed the larger pieces of wreckage.
"I think, ultimately, the most important thing is just remembering the sacrifice of these people and anyone who has ever given to their country," Holmer said.
