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1945

May                        1945      J.C. Major, 1218 Chateau Drive, San Jose, California, claims a Grumman Torpedo Bomber TBM crashed into the Lake when the plane’s engine quite while over the water.  The Navy plane made a water landing and the pilot got out in a raft.  Since the Park was closed during this period, rescue was difficult.

August 20              1945      A minor building fire.

September 15      1945      The Watchman Fire Lookout reports seeing a strange cloud of smoke or fog rising sharply from the Lake’s surface, then mushrooming.  Two days later a similar cloud is seen from the summit of Garfield Peak.  A third was seen from Devil’s Backbone.  All three clouds were seen on a clear day and over the deepest part of the Lake. Miss Linda Newhall, the fire lookout, reported the cloud as a dust colored fog or smoke cloud forming on or arising from the waters of the lake.  It rose sharply, then mushroomed out, and finally spread and drifted away with the wind currents.

September 17      1945      Dale Vincent, while on the summit of Garfield Peak, observes a column of grayish smoke or steam extending about 1000 feet in height, 200 feet in width, and about 300 feet above the surface of the water of the Lake.  He estimated the smoke to be one mile from the east shore of the lake.  Mr. Vincent had his camera with him, but was so frightened he thought only of getting himself and camera down off the Peak.

September 30      1945      The third reported sighting of a dust cloud over Crater Lake.  Park Ranger Kenneth Hurlburt observed the cloud at about 11:15 a.m. from a lookout point on the west side of the lake, between Hillman and Llao Rock.  The cloud was about 300 to 400 feet wide and extended upward to a distance of four hundred to five hundred feet.  It was diamond in shape, narrow at the top and bottom and wider in the middle of the formation.  He observed it from all the various lookout points along the rim, as far south as Crater Lake Lodge. (From a NPS press release)

October 29            1945      Dr. John C. Merriam dies in Oakland, California

Born in Iowa in 1869, John C. Merriam was a geologist, zoologist, and premier taxonomist who trained under such luminaries as Joseph Le Conte and Karl von Zitell. He achieved scientific prominence at the University of California at Berkeley, but away from the laboratory, he led expeditions to fossil localities in California, Nevada, and the Pacific Northwest.

Merriam believed that intellectual curiosity and the search for meaning in nature should be the focus of public parks as an institution. At Crater Lake National Park, he facilitated the creation of a nature guiding, or “interpretation,” program beginning in 1926. He tapped Carnegie money to augment federal funding for the Sinnott Memorial near the lodge at Rim Village, as an educational device to help visitors contemplate how the beauty of Crater Lake and its setting were the result of the relatively recent cataclysmic eruption of Mount Mazama.

Merriam’s “study in appreciation of nature” lasted almost two decades and made him the namesake of two features at Crater Lake National Park. One is an underwater cone in Crater Lake; the other is on the rim, where elements of a “stirring story” on all sides fix visitors’ attention to “the clear, overpowering picture of force in nature and this conception of time, endless in duration.”  (by Stephen R. Mark, Park Historian, in Oregon Encyclopedia)

November 6          1945      Superintendent Leavitt, in a letter to Dr. Howell Williams, describes the Fall phenomenon seen over Crater Lake:  “Mrs. Dale Stoops of Klamath Falls reported that on September 18 she and other members of her party saw a funnel shaped cloud just over the water…it appeared to be gas, smoke, dust or steam just over the surface of the lake…The phenomenon (was) reported by Mr. Dale Vincent (photographer, naturalist and writer) on September 17, from the summit of Garfield Peak, and by our lookout, Miss (Linda) Newhall on September 15.  Unless everybody is getting “hallucinations” it does appear that there is some phenomenon there that has not yet been satisfactorily explained.  No one seem to have seen the smoke or gas actually rising from the waters of the Lake…Unfortunately, Crater Lake has been officially closed…However special efforts are being made to persuade the Navy to provide funds to keep the park operating during the winter, primarily for the benefit of the 5,000 Marines at Klamath Falls who are being treated for tropical diseased.  The Medical officers find that a change of environment…is one of the finest supplement to their medical program and lasting recovery.”

October 27, 1945 Mystery Cloud On Crater Lake –

A mystery cloud, rising from Crater Lake – site of an extinct volcano was reported today by E. P. Leavitt, superintendent of Crater Lake National Park.

November 12, 1945 Scenic Volcano –

It was eight weeks ago that Oregon’s famed Crater Lake began its unlake like burps. Two days later, a second dust-bubble broke from the surface. The third, two weeks later, formed a cloud 300 ft. wide. Tourists began to flock to the lake to watch. After the road was closed for the winter, in late October, the lake uttered yet one more eructation.

December 24, 1945 Smoking Waters of Crater Lake a Great Mystery –

Sound recording equipment destined to be lowered into the lake, and snow sleds to carry it, were due to arrive within a week to enable geologists to penetrate the snowy crater and find the source of mysterious clouds of smoke or dust reported intermittently since last fall over the ancient volcano which blew up ages ago.

November 12       1945      Time magazine reports that eight weeks ago a fire lookout on the Watchman Peak saw the calm blue water emit a giant belch.  A cloud of smoke or dust filled gas billowed out of the deep water, rose high in the air.  Two days later, a second dust bubble broke from the surface.  The third was two weeks later, forming a cloud 300 feet wide.  Tourists began to flock to the Lake to watch.  In late October, after the road was closed, the Lake uttered yet one more eruption of gas.

December 5          1945      Because of the sighting of strange smoke clouds over Crater Lake, Dr. Howell Williams proposes the installation of a seismograph near the Rim of Crater Lake.

December 3          1945      Grumman Hellcat fighter plane crashes east of Skell Head.  The remains of the pilot are found 25 years later.  A group of seven planes had left Redding, California heading for Washington.  As the formation entered clouds near the Park, one of the planes disappeared.  The seven-plane squadron was part of a larger group of 100 F-6-F Hellcats heading eventually to San Diego.  The planes were flying in squadron of 4 each, flying at 21,000 feet.  The squad master saw Pilot Frank Lupo trying to switch his gas tanks.  Apparently the switch failed, the engine quit and the Hell Cat was last seen heading down through the clouds.  The official investigation of the crash was conducted in 1970, following the discovery of the Lupo’s skull. (See entry for: August 17, 1970)

It was in a newspaper article. His wingman came forward and volunteered the information. They had run into high winds and run out of fuel and the last he heard from Lupo was that he was switching to his belly tank.

8-23-70  Mail Tribune

Human Skull May Be Last Link in 25-year Mystery

It was about 11 a.m. On Dec. 3, 1945, when a flight of Navy Hellcat fighters approached the Crater Lake area.

They belonged to Navel Air Group 5, VF 5, and were on their way from Pasco, Wash. To Brown Field, near San Diego, Calif.

One of these fliers was Ensign Les Farrell now living in Medford.

Farrell said Friday he remembered approaching the area which was shrouded in heavy clouds. The planes rose to about 22,000 feet to avoid the clouds.

Over the radio, Farrell said, he heard one of the pilots saying that his external belly tank had run dry and that he was switching to a full tank.

That was the last ever heard from this pilot. Farrell said in 1945 the term, “jet stream” was still unknown, but he believed the reason for running short on gas was that the planes were fighting a jet stream head-on and it cut at least 150 miles per hour off the planes’ speed.

The planes had to interrupt their flight scout. Farrell, who later retired from the Navy as a commander, said he landed in North Bend. Others landed in Medford and in Klamath Falls.

One plane didn’t land at either of these fields. It crashed into Crater Lake National Park.

Twelve of the Hellcats that landed in Klamath Falls searched for several days, but nothing was found of the missing aircraft. After the Navy called off the search, private planes continued, but in vain.

While it was impossible to determine when the wreck was found originally, rangers at the park say they have known for a long time of the wreck. The Navy confirmed this.

But what brings the story to light again, the finding of a human skull last week by an off-duty park ranger.

While the wreckage was found, no trace of the pilot was ever discovered.

A team of naval investigations from Whidbey Island (Washington) Naval Air Station was at the scene Thursday; led to the wreck site by ranger Larry Smith. They confirmed that it is the wreckage of the missing Hellcat fighter.

Lt. (j.g.) Steve Black, Whidbey Island information officer, said Friday, the name of the pilot is known to the Navy, but it has not as yet been ascertained whether the found skull was that of the pilot.

He explained that the name could not be released until there was positive identification. This was to be made from the skull’s dental structure. (Ed. Note: there were only three teeth remaining, with the lower jaw missing after 25 years.)

Lt. Black said the reason for not releasing is that the man probably still has relatives living somewhere and it would be premature to give them hope that some of the remains of their missing kin was finally found.

Season                  1945      Visitation: 77,864  (Online says: 79,535)

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