A fateful flight: 80 years ago, a plane carrying members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team to McClellan Airfield near Sacramento crashed near Auburn

Editor's note: This story was corrected to show the Vosges Mountains are in France. Flying over the hills just west of Auburn, Lieutenant Jerry Cebe was in trouble. Cebe was at the controls of a military transport carrying members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The war was over, and now the soldiers were returning to Hawaii. Cebe had stellar qualifications. He was an engineering grad from the University of Missouri and worked for a California utility before joining the Army Air Corps in 1942. He was named the outstanding pilot trainee in his class and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was 30, married and had a young son. On that November night, though, Cebe faced wicked, wet weather. Visibility was minimal. A vital navigational instrument had failed. Plans called for him to land at McClellan Field near Sacramento at 6:30 p.m. He had missed McClellan entirely. Instead, his C-47 was thundering low over Baxter Grade Road on the outskirts of Auburn. And through a cruel twist, if Cebe had searched for the lights of Auburn, seeking a reference point of illumination, he would have seen only blackness. On that night, Jerry Cebe was horribly, horribly lost. Yet he had few options. He flew on through the storm. It was Nov. 28, 1945. Eighty years ago. A tragedy was unfolding, one largely forgotten. Young men, battle-hardened It was listed as MAT 115, for Military Air Transport flight 115. The trip was to be routine. In the late afternoon, the C-47 would depart the Palm Springs Army Air Field, where the weather was clear and bright, and head north to Sacramento. The flight would take a little more than three hours. Besides Cebe, originally from St. Louis, the flight crew included co-pilot Major Louis Martin, 26, of Patterson, Calif., and flight clerk Corporal Paul Pitterle of Freeport, Ill. On a flight carrying exclusively young men, Pitterle, at 20, was the youngest. The 21 passengers were all members of the 442nd except two. Rolf Hecht was a so-called hitchhiker, joining the flight to McClellan for his return home to Berkeley. Hecht had an unusual background, as he was born in Germany but fled with his family to Switzerland to avoid Nazi persecution. He fought at D-Day and was with American troops when they liberated the infamous Dachau concentration camp. Then there was Attilio G. Demattei, with an address in San Francisco. He was referenced only briefly in military news releases and he was not, apparently, a member of the 442nd or the 100th infantry battalion, which was merged with the 442nd. Why he was on MAT 115 remains a puzzle. So there were 19 members of the 442nd on the flight, all Nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans. All were battle-hardened – and battle-weary. Among those on the flight was Hiroyuki Hiramoto, from the little town of Ninole on the Big Island of Hawaii. He played basketball and was active in the Future Farmers of America before the war. Also aboard was Tokuo Kaneshige, who was born in Honolulu and grew up in the Liliha neighborhood. He left his job with the Hawaiian Pineapple Co. to join the 442nd. Hiramoto and Kaneshige were part of what would become the most highly decorated combat unit of its size in U.S. military history. It was one of the most decimated as well. Perhaps the team's most celebrated success was the rescue of the so-called lost battalion, U.S. soldiers encircled by German troops in the Vosges Mountains of France. After several days of intense fighting, the 442nd broke through enemy lines and saved the 211 Americans. Nearly 800 members of the 442nd were wounded or killed in the rescue. Recruits from Hawaii made up an estimated 70 percent of the 442nd, the remainder coming from the mainland, where nearly all Japanese-American families were locked up in concentration camps. (The Japanese-Americans in Hawaii were not incarcerated because they were so essential to the economy.) With their 442nd fellows, Hiramoto and Kaneshige had seen combat and carnage in Europe. They were young and brave and, at last, they were going home. On a stormy night, an instrument fails The C-47 was an absolute workhorse during World War II and beyond. The plane dropped paratroopers, hauled cargo, towed gliders and was widely used for troop transport. The plane that lifted off from Palm Springs Army Airfield that November afternoon was built by Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach and put into service on Aug. 8, 1944. As the plane flew over the geographic spine of California, it had abundant fuel and its total weight was well below capacity. Still, there was a problem. By the time Lt. Cebe approached Sacramento, night had fallen. Rain began pelting the aircraft. At 6:35 p.m., Cebe told air traffic controllers at McClellan he was close to the base. He requested landing instructions. They were given. Controllers could not see the plane. They asked Cebe to flash his landing lights. They saw nothing. At 6:40 p.m., Cebe reported he was wrong; he was off course. He also reported his plane's radio compass had failed. Unlike a standard compass, which points to the magnetic north pole, a radio compass receives a signal from a particular location, such as an air base. The pilot can then track the signal to the area of the landing zone. On this stormy night, seeing little to nothing either below or above him, the loss of the radio compass could prove catastrophic. 'Go for broke' and Placer County In Hawaii, gamblers would "go for broke" by putting it all on the line. Members of the 442nd adopted the phrase as their regimental motto. As the Nisei on MAT 115 flew north over Placer County, they were likely unaware many of the families in the county were Japanese-American, too, mostly farmers. A fair number had sons who were also in the 442nd. At the time, Placer County had roughly 2,500 Japanese-American residents, nearly all of whom had been rounded up and sent to concentration camps. By November 1945, many had been released and were either home or on their way. In 2012, a memorial was created in Roseville to honor all Placer County Nisei who served in World War II. The majority, perhaps 100, were members of the 442nd. The stately memorial includes monuments of black granite. The centerpiece is a bronze statue depicting a member of the 442nd aiding a member of the lost battalion. Fittingly, the memorial sits on a road named, "Go For Broke." A town in blackness Just after 7 p.m., Cebe contacted air traffic control and said he was just two minutes from McClellan but could not see the airfield's green signal lights. He was, in fact, somewhere over Roseville. As he flew toward Baxter Grade Road, it is possible Cebe looked toward the lights of Auburn. On that night, though, at that time, the town was in blackness. A power outage seized the community and lasted roughly 90 minutes. In a final contact around 7:15 p.m., Cebe told air traffic control he was turning back to Sacramento. A controller asked for his altitude. There was no response. About that time, Pitterle, the 20-year-old flight clerk, entered the cabin and told the passengers to buckle their seatbelts. Survivors later reported Pitterle seemed calm. They felt it was part of the normal landing procedure. Roaring engines, then fire Joe C. Snyder was an employee at the Baxter Ranch, and more. The Baxter family embraced him as one of their own, and he had his own room in the main Baxter home. Snyder worked mainly with the cattle but helped out with pretty much anything that needed doing. On the night of Nov. 28, Snyder heard a plane flying very low over the ranch house. "The roar of the engines was terrific," he reported later. Then he heard a crash. He ran to a window and saw fire erupting from a slope about a quarter-mile from the house. At an estimated speed of 120 miles per hour, MAT 115 collided with the earth. Snyder rushed to the scene with his helper, Jimmie Hubbard. The downed plane was wreathed in flame. The wings were sheared off, leaving the fuselage a smoking, contorted metal tube. Snyder heard a man screaming. He and Hubbard managed to pull him out. Snyder then sent Hubbard to a nearby ranch house to phone the sheriff. Searchingaround the fuselage, Snyder found three men whose bodies had been thrown from the plane. About 8 p.m., sheriff's deputies and firefighters arrived, as did ambulances from DeWitt Hospital. Neighbors showed up to see if they could help. They worked through the night removing the dead and tending to the injured. Nine men died as a result of the crash, including the flight crew of Cebe, Martin and Pitterle. Hecht, of Berkeley, and Demattei, from San Francisco, also perished. Four members of the 442nd were lost. Hiroyuki Hiramoto, who loved basketball and was active in the FFA, died three days after the crash. The other 442nd fatalities were Charles S. Higa, Lawrence T. Iwamoto and Saburo Imai. Members of the 442nd who survived the flight – 15 in all – suffered a range of injuries, from burns and abrasions to fractured skulls and lacerated kidneys. Tokuo Kaneshige, who left his job with the pineapple company to join the 442nd, was among those who survived. He eventually returned to Hawaii and lived a full life. He and his wife Stella raised four children. While holding a full-time job and helping raise the family, he earned a degree in engineering from the University of the Hawaii. He worked his way into the managerial ranks at Pearl Harbor and was an avid golfer. After retirement, Kaneshige ran 10 marathons. In 2009, he died at 87. Weeks after the crash, a six-officer investigative team from Stockton Field issued its findings. Cebe had been, in a sense, a victim of circumstance. While Cebe clearly missed some navigational cues, the nasty weather was a factor, and the lack of lights in Auburn could have confused the pilot, the panel found. The failure of the radio compass was crucial. "A properly homing compass may have prevented the accident," the report concluded. Shadows and silence Matt Baxter leads the way along the Dudley Canal, its waters flowing cool and clear through the hills west of Auburn. A noted musician and record producer, Baxter lived on the East Coast much of his life. He spent time at the ranch in his childhood, though, and fell in love with it. In 2003, he had the chance to buy the property. He did, and is now a diligent steward of the land and the family ranching legacy. Baxter steps away from the canal and moves carefully through swirls of green and yellow grass. "Watch it, there are rocks down there. They can bite you," he says. He stops near a clearing. This is where MAT 115 went down. Baxter has been to this place several times. The story of the crash, though, was elusive. "I had heard they were Italian prisoners of war," he said. "It's good to hear the full story. These guys, they were heroes." The military typically does a thorough clean-up after a plane crash, and it appears that was the case here. Today, there are no signs of the crash on that night 80 years ago – the night when 25 men who survived a world war were killed or injured in a terrible accident. As light fades, the gray pines and blue oaks recede to shadow. Now and then, there is the sound of a car or truck going along Baxter Grade Road. Otherwise, there is silence. In the distance, the lights of Sacramento glimmer. Rich Hanner is a former editor of the Auburn Journal. He can be reached at rhanner100@gmail.com. A note of background This account was based on news stories of the crash and aftermath, obituaries of some of the service members, witness and survivor accounts, and the official Army Air Force investigation. Nicholas A. Veronico, aviation historian and author, provided extensive analysis of the investigative report. Claire Mitani of the 442nd Legacy Center in Honolulu helped with content on the 442nd, as did E. Douglas Sterner, author of "Go For Broke: The Nisei Warriors of World War II," and David Unruhe, author, president of the Placer Buddhist Church and a leader in the creation of the Nisei Veterans Memorial in Roseville.