Memorial Day

Don't forget to remember the fallen soldiers today. We have two special ones close to me. Lawrence Ritter who crashed  his P47 not far from here. Following the link on his name will give you more info. And Capt. Campbell buried in Leetonia Cemetery.  Visiting these sites on Memorial day gives a hands on feeling to memorial day far above the family barbecue.

On a different note we had a visitor the other night. While watching television I heard Scooter growling at the fireplace. Scooter isn't one to make noise for no reason so I asked Lee if something was over there. Sure enough, there was a three-foot long Rat Snake like the one above crawling on the hearth. Now a rat snake can look and act a lot like a rattler to try and fool you into leaving it alone so I wasn't too quick to grab it. Once I identified it, I grabbed it behind the head and tossed it outside. Scooter and the rest of us were glad to see it on the right side of the house. 

I am not one to kill a snake when at all possible as they do a lot of rodent killing, which helps keep the intermediary host of Lyme's disease, the mouse population, down. Most of my snake killing is accidental during lawn mowing. Snakes do not go through a lawn mower well.

The bear who knocked the fence down has stayed away since we and the dogs are home and I am hoping it stays that way. Lee and I are spending the afternoon with friends having a cookout and playing a game called, "Dudo". My son sent me home with this game and it is simple and fun, specially if you are a good liar. It involves dice and trying to guess and bet how many of each kind everyone has. The guess has to get progressively higher so eventually someone has to lie and the next person calls, "Dudo". If there is not the number of dice kind bet the person who bet losses a dice, if there is the Dudo caller losses. Last one to have any dice wins. You start with 5 dice each. Part of most people's experience at camp is playing a non-electronic games. Hopefully, this will continue to be a part of camp in the future. Have a great Memorial Day. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Capt. Lawrence J. Ritter....P47 crash of 1946

A picture of a P47







Cold Springs Camp








Long Shot of gate to road.








Close shot of gate to road

GPS location of site is: N 41 degrees 33.646 minutes

W 77 degrees 35.184 minutes

elevation 1804 ft. This is the center of the circle about 75 feet from crash site.

Plane crash location from Leetonia Road:

Take Cushman Road to Francias Leetonia Rd. from this point you will go 3.1 miles to the right on Francias Leetonia. About 100 yds past Cold Springs Camp (picture 1) on the right you will see a logging road gate that has fluorescent green paint on it. (Pictures 2 & 3) From this point you will go about 1.5 to 1.75 miles up to the end of the logging road. The first half a mile is between a 10-20% upgrade after that it is not too bad. At the turnaround at the end of the logging road at about eleven o’clock you will walk about 75’ to the crash site and memorial. The whole walk at a fair pace takes about forty minutes one way.

There isn’t a lot left of the wreckage, which has been pillaged by souvenir hunters. I took a picture of the twisted aluminum body still sitting at the site. Lee Anne said she heard the propeller to the plane was once hanging on a camp in Slate Run, a fact that needs further investigation.

Lee Anne stood in the crater made by the plane’s impact and you can see it is about as tall as she is and about 10 foot wide. The stone is very nice and the flag in good repair. I am going to check with the Boy Scout Troup that put the stone there and see if there is more information about Lawrence J Ritter’s family.

As I lay in the crater looking up through the trees I thought about the cold snowy day the P47 crashed into the hill. You can almost hear the sound of the engine as it became one with the mountain. I wondered if the pilot knew he was going down much before impact. Just from the looks of things I am certain he did not survive the impact. It took seven months before they found the plane and not much of the pilot remained. It was November so it was probably during deer hunting season when someone came across the wreckage. The site reminds you how quickly life can be taken. Captain Lawrence Ritter died at the age of 27, not a long time to spend on this earth.

I am continuing to look for more information about Captain Ritter his family and the accident. For now enjoy the pictures and for those of you capable of walking at least 4 miles go up and see the site. It is a bit of history so easily forgotten it seems few people in this area even know it exists. A great walk for memorial weekend!

Mountain Girl, Paula, logging out.

Mystery in the Woods...more

Why are these two people smiling when one of them has a broken foot? As Paul Harvey would say,” Now for the rest of the story.”

On Thursday, May 3^rd, after lunch and a morning of turkey hunting Leonard Riehl had no idea the most interesting part of his day was yet to come. Carol Riehl, Leonard’s wife and her mother Kathryn Hand had heard about a plane crash site from Carol’s brother in the Tioga Forest as they explained this to Leonard he thought he knew where it was and they were off to find the plane.

The weather was perfect on the two mile walk back into the woods they saw a woodcock, a grouse and a turkey. When they reached the end of the logging road they looked around the entire turnaround and Carol spotted a small American Flag waving them toward the site.

April 26^th, 1946, Captain Lawrence Ritter lost his life on a training mission from Detroit’s Selfridge Field to New York City. The Boys Scouts placed a plaque at the site in the Fall of 2000 to commemorate this veteran's service.

After viewing the wreckage Carol turned and walked back towards the logging path. All of the sudden she went down and snapped her ankle. It didn’t take long for Leonard to figure out his wife’s foot was broken and she wasn’t going to be able to walk the two miles out of the woods. He left his mother-in-law Kathryn with Carol and hiked out to his vehicle as fast as he could.

He stopped at my house, no one home; Mick’s house no one home, and the Jack Bonitz camp no one home. He then met another person on the road they encouraged him to just use Mick’s phone the door is always open. Leonard called 911 and in about 50 minutes they made it to Leetonia. He directed them up to the site where the forestry service unlocked the gate and started cutting trees out of the way to get the 4-wheelers through. Leonard says, “There was a funny part were all these guys were holding on to the 4-wheeler and they hit a bump, they all flew off.” Fortunately, none of them were hurt.

The sun had long departed and the girls were getting cold having dressed only for the warm Spring day. The army of rescuers arrived none too soon and collected Carol and Kathryn. They made their long trip by ambulance to the Williamsport Hospital. Carol has two broken bones and is awaiting surgery on her leg Wednesday. I asked her if it was worth it.

“No,” she said emphatically.

Of course after the leg is healed and the pain of the day forgotten, she will have a great story to tell about finding the crash of the P47 in Tioga Forest.

Leonard and Carol Riehl are both from Dayton, Ohio and have enjoyed coming to the woods of Tioga Forest for years.

I now have specific directions to the site and will be getting pictures as soon as I can get up there. So this story isn't over yet.

Special thanks to Alice Sommers for connecting me to the people in this story and Deb Finkbinder for telling me where they were staying.

Mystery in the Woods

Things have been busy in the woods. Sorry I haven't been blogging the last few days, but this should make up for it.

You are probably wondering what a picture of a fern plant coming up and the view from Cushman overlook have to do with a mystery in the woods.

Well, on Thursday it was reported that three people from Ohio were hiking in the woods off Francias Leetonia Road and in order for me to drive there I went past Cushman and had to take a picture. It is hard to drive past that view with a camera and not take a picture.

My reason for attempting to repeat the steps of the hikers will start now. It appears one of the hikers broke her ankle while hiking back a logging road with her husband and daughter. The husband left the daughter and wife and drove to Micks to call 911. Mick not being home and his door unlocked...as usual. The man walked in and used the phone. Four-wheelers and chain saws were brought in to work their way back to the woman who is now sitting in the dark with her daughter. It was a full moonlit night so it wasn't real scary. Any of you who have been here on one of those nights know you don't need a flashlight to see pretty well in the dark.

For the most part this would have been a NO BIG STORY, except for why the hikers were in the woods to begin with. They were looking for an old B-52 plane crash site that happened in 1946. I had never heard of such a thing so of course I wanted to follow their steps back to the site. The only information I had was it was the first logging road to the right after the Spring House and it was back about a mile and a half. Well, sorry to say this wasn't enough information to find the plane. Hence, the second picture of the fern popping up on the logging road was about all I found. The quest isn't over. I will be pursuing a more accurate location. I must have a picture of this event for the blog and find out some more details.

If any of you know anything about this incident, please email me.
Mountain Girl, Paula, logging out!