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By Diana Bowley, Of the NEWS Staff - GREENVILLE - It was "gut-wrenching" for the members of the search party to come upon the destruction caused by the crash of a B-52 bomber on Elephant Mountain in January 1963. And it was just as difficult for five of the searchers to be standing at the remote crash site four decades later.With the gruesome details of that tragic day still etched in their minds, four former Air National Guard members and a Millinocket man were among those who paid their respects Saturday to the seven airmen who died in the fiery crash. The two sole survivors - retired Capt. Gerald Adler of Davis, Calif., and the aircraft commander retired Lt. Col. Dante E. Bulli of Nebraska - who ejected from the plane before it crashed, also were recognized and honored Saturday. "You never forget something like that; a scene like that is not erased," said Bill McHale of Bangor, a former Air National Guard member who helped in the 1963 search. The memorial, sponsored annually by the Moosehead Riders Snowmobile Club, is conducted at the resting place of a section of the airplane's fuselage. There, seven yellow roses were left in remembrance of the men who perished: Lt. Col. Joe R. Simpson Jr., Maj. William W. Gabriel, Maj. Robert J. Morrison, Maj. Robert J. Hill, Capt. Herbert L. Hansen, Capt. Charles G. Leuchter, and Tech. Sgt. Michael F. O'Keefe. Two red roses also were left in recognition of Adler and Bulli. Three Blackhawk helicopters flown by the Army National Guard and a Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife plane made a ceremonial flyover during the memorial event at the crash site that followed a short ceremony held a few miles away outside a snowmobile clubhouse, where an engine from the aircraft is on display. Joining McHale for the 40th anniversary ride to the crash site in the bitter cold Saturday were his former comrades from the National Guard - Jim Campbell of Hampden, Rollie Andrews of Bangor, and Ralph Harris of Hermon - along with Wayne Campbell of Millinocket, a civilian who had joined in the search. Paul Tower of Brewer, another member of the rescue party attended the ceremony at the clubhouse but was unable to take the lengthy snowmobile trip to the remote crash site. Others in attendance for Saturday's ceremonies included the 101st Maine Air National Guard honor guard, which included Mark Andrews, the son of Rollie Andrews, and a contingent of wardens from DIF&W. Wayne Campbell and his younger brother, Steve, traveled to the memorial site on the same snowmobiles that Wayne Campbell and his father, the late Earlan Campbell, had used to search the area the night of the crash. One colored red and the other powder blue, the antique Polaris Snowtravelers, which are normally on display at the Northern Timber Cruisers Snowmobile Museum, putt-putted to the location and had to be stopped by brute force since the vehicles have no brakes. "When you get up there [to the crash site] it's a very solemn feeling; it just makes you realize how insignificant you are," said Wayne Campbell, who was a 19-year-old home from college at the time. |