Ehlerding, Herbert H.

HOWARD ROY EICHER

STAFF SERGEANT
U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS 

Howard Roy Eicher was born on August 7, 1921 in Hartford Township, Adams County. His parents were Raymond and Maybel Eicher and he had one brother, Carl. His brother, Private First Class Carl Eicher went on to serve as a heavy artilleryman in the U.S. Army in WWII. He was also the nephew of Private Solomon Eicher who died while in the U.S. Army of a kidney infection in April 1943.As a young man he attended Hartford Township elementary school and then attended and graduated from Bluffton High School in 1939 when his mother moved to Bluffton and remarried. His father, Ray, moved to Geneva to live with his father. Howard worked  at the Snug Restaurant in Bluffton along with his mother and stepfather. He also worked at the Montpelier Hatchery and Montgomery Ward store where he was in charge of the household goods and paints. Howard married Mildred Waltz on August 23, 1942 and he entered service into the U.S. Army Air Corps the very next day. 

Upon his enlistment, Howard attended basic training at Keesler Field in Mississippi for basic training, and then at bases in Detroit, Texas, and Oklahoma. By the fall of 1943, Staff Sergeant Eicher was training at Blythe Field, California as a Flight Engineer on a B-24 Liberator.  

On September 22, Eicher and crew were on the last leg of a cross-country training fligth from California to Topeka, Kansas when the four engine bomber crashed near Waldo Kansas. The aircraft got caught up in turbulence generated by a line of thunderstorms moving east across Kansas. The turbulence causes the pilot (Lt. Don Kidder) to lose control and crash into the rocky uplands above Wolf Creek, killing the entire crew of eleven Air Corps personnel.

Initially rumors swirled throughout the rural community of Waldo Kansas that enemy sabotage brought down the plane. Military officials asked members of the community to not talk about the crash. It wasn't until the crash report was made public years later that the local rumors were quashed.

In 2004, members of the Waldo, Kansas community erected a monument dedicated to the eleven member crew so that "they'll never be forgotten".

For his service and sacrifice, SSgt. Eicher was awarded the WWll Victory Medal and the American Campaign Medal

Information researched and collected by Cody Loshe, 2018. 

SOURCES

“ B-24 Bomber Crash Memorial, a War Memorial.” Www.hmdb.org, www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=103036. Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.

Yurtoğlu, Nadir. “Http://Www.historystudies.net/Dergi//Birinci-Dunya-Savasinda-Bir-Asayis-Sorunu-Sebinkarahisar-Ermeni-isyani20181092a4a8f.Pdf.” History Studies International Journal of History, vol. 10, no. 7, 2018, pp. 241–264., doi:10.9737/hist.2018.658. 

The Berne Witness (29 Sep. 1943) 

Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic Revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7720. Https://Doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720.” doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f. 

The Berne Witness (1 Oct. 1943) 

SUPPLEMENTARY

B-24 Bomber Crash Memorial, Waldo Kansas