Scioto Airman Dies in Crash
Wright Field Crew of Five Killed In Canada
Master Sgt. Pearl H. Zempter, 29, son of Henry L. and Zora Zempter of Swauger Valley, northeast of Sciotoville, was one of five army personnel killed about 9:30 p.m. Monday in the crash of a C-45 army transport two miles south of the city limits of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
The victims were three officers and two enlisted men. Sgt. Zempter, a graduate of Minford High School in the class of 1935 was flight engineer, serving a second enlistment.
The mother was notified by long distance from Wright Field at 1 a.m. today of the tragic death of her son.
Identification of the victims was made through Wright Field. Officers there said the men were en route to Selfridge Field in Michigan to make advance plans for army air shows throughout the nation to acquaint the public with AAF research and development.
Wright Field officers were notified that the plan went down during a severe electrical storm. No eye-witnesses were located, but Mr. Arthur Gilboe, living on a farm nearby the crash scene, said heard the noise overhead as a plan in trouble and seconds later heard the noise of the explosion.
The bodies of the men, attached to the 4140th Air Base unit at Wright Field, were mangled badly. Bits of the plane together with two partially opened parachutes, torn G.I. clothing and mutilated instruction books were scattered over a radius of 100 yards. The plan fell in open country only a few minutes from its destination at Mt. Clemens, Michigan.
Sgt. Zempter would have been 30 on July 20. He was born on Bonser Run but lived for years at Swauger Valley. After graduation from Minford High School, he was employed for six months by Wheeling Steel Corp and entered the army December 22, 1939. He received most of his training at Chanute Field, Illinois, where he was trained as a mechanic.
The ground crewman served at Orlando, Florida for about two years and was based at Greenville, SC when assigned to Howard Field in Panama. He was in Panama about two years prior to reenlistment in October 1945. He came home in November for a 90-day furlough and returned to Panama. Last August 15 he was home on a furlough and then reported to Wright Field. He had been making frequent cross country trips in help map the air show plans, he wrote to home folk.
Surviving are the parents and these brothers and sisters: Mrs. Malcolm Parsons of Columbus, Phyllis Ruth, Margaret Ann, Sharon Kay at home, Edward, who was last heard from in Ogden, Utah, early in March, Paul who arrived home in March after eight months in Korea with the infantry and now working in Dayton, Clifford Lee and Donald at home.