Our B-25 figured in at least three local obituaries:
"Frank William Etzel Sr.: Master of Many Trades Who Saved
B-25 Airman after Crash into Mon" by Matthew P. Smith of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24 October 1995: "While he was a Baldwin patrolman,
Mr. Etzel helped rescue one of the airmen aboard a B-25 bomber that crashed in the Monongahela River on January 31, 1956.
He and two other men helped the crewman (Master Sergeant Alfred J. Alleman) out
of the icy water and took him to St. Joseph Hospital…"
Recounting Steven Muick’s "life full of adventure as a riverboat
captain," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff Writer Carmen J. Lee noted on Monday, June 2, 1997 that "in 1956,
he (Captain Muick) fished Airman 2nd Class Charles L. Smith out of the Monongahela River after his B-25 bomber plunged
into the water and sank."
AF44-29125 is the mainstay of "Obituary: Carol E. Long / Tugboat captain who saw bomber crash into
Mon." On Monday, November 19, 2007, Steve Twedt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
wrote:
"But, one day in January 1956, Mr. Long was also a witness to history --
the crash of a Mitchell B-25 bomber in the Monongahela River, east of the Glenwood Bridge.
"Mr. Long, who was skippering the Expeditor tugboat at the time, was close
enough that he was able to help rescuers pull surviving crew members out of the icy river. Two others died….
"Mr. Long's daughter, Cheryl Haberstock of Pleasant Hills, said her father
saw some wreckage being carted away on barges. But he wouldn't elaborate on the particulars after he received threatening
phone calls warning him not to talk about what he had seen.
"He wouldn't talk to anybody about it," she said. "He was too scared."
