Great Barrington — May 7, 1945, began just like any other day in Great Barrington. Families sat down to breakfast. Children headed off to school. War-weary residents turned on their radios to hear the latest news from the front. Everything seemed normal. Before the day was over, however, a remarkable series of dramatic events would astonish local residents.
First came the thrilling news that Germany had surrendered. People danced in the streets. Victory in Europe was announced with an official V-E Day declaration planned for the following day. And equally exciting for locals: Pfc. William Graham arrived home that afternoon, just released from a German prisoner-of-war camp. He had been captured just before Christmas the previous year. “The Germans forced us into a train box car,” Mr. Graham told me in a 1995 interview. “We could feel and hear the British bombs dropping all around us. The explosions rattled the car. I was very scared. But I survived. I was very lucky.”
On the evening of May 7, family and friends gathered at the Graham home on Cottage Street to celebrate Bill’s return.
Near midnight, lingering party guests were chatting and cleaning up in the kitchen. Young Rosemary Graham had been sent to bed, but the drone of a low-flying plane kept her awake.
When the plane circled the neighborhood at an extremely low altitude, the Grahams rushed into the backyard, suspecting some sort of skyward tribute for their son. Meanwhile, Rosemary ran downstairs and into the front yard. She was greeted by the deafening roar of an aircraft nearly on top of her. She crouched in horror, blinded by the stabbing glare of the plane’s running lights and terrified of the howling airborne monster about to “attack” her.
The pilot, West Point Air Corps Cadet A. J. Horowitz, later explained that he was desperately lost while flying his AT-6 trainer plane. The fuel gauge read empty. His plane dropped low, sliced through the patchy ground fog, snagged some power lines, and brushed a tree. Part of a wing ripped off. The careening craft then bashed into the Graham’s house. Rosemary stood alone in terror—the rest of her family still in the back yard. The plane didn’t catch fire, although there were reports that gasoline leaked from the craft for a time. But there was considerable damage to the Graham’s home. The kitchen—where family members had been just moments before—was strewn with debris, food, dishes, and plane parts. A portion of the foundation also caved in.
Miraculously, Cadet Horowitz survived the ordeal with nothing more than a cut lip and a loose tooth. The day after the crash, roads surrounding the Cottage Street neighborhood were snarled with traffic as large crowds flocked to the scene of the crash.
Fifty years later, in 1995, Rosemary Graham Gibbons, her brother, and spouses reminisced with me about the “Miracle on Cottage Street.” I begin to wonder whatever happened to A.J. Horowitz, that very lucky pilot who fell from the sky. I learned that despite Mr. Horowitz’s brush with death, he did not stop flying. He stayed in the Air Force for another 12 years and flew more than 100 missions during the Korean War. After leaving the service, he changed his name to James Salter and went on to become an award-winning writer of such books as “A Sport and a Pastime,” “Solo Faces,” and “Dusk.” The latter book won him the PEN/Faulkner Award, one of this country’s most prestigious literary prizes.
According to The New York Times, jaded editors and aspiring writers alike spoke of Mr. Salter with reverence. Reviewers suggest that James Salter is a name that will endure long after the names of many best-selling literary novelists have passed from memory. He has been called a writer’s writer. Salter also dabbled in the movie industry for a time, writing the screenplay for “Downhill Racer” (starring Robert Redford and Gene Hackman). He also collaborated on a number of television projects. After a bit of sleuthing, I discovered where Salter lived. I phoned and spoke with his wife, who promised he would return my call.
A very lucky man
The next day, my phone rang. “A.J. Horowitz here,” said a rugged but friendly voice.
After exchanging greetings, I got right to the point: “How in the world did you get lost over Great Barrington?” I asked.
Mr. Salter told me that on that fateful evening, he took off from Stewart Field, near Newburgh, N.Y., on a navigation training flight. The squadron was supposed to head west, toward Scranton, Pa. But the winds aloft were all wrong, different from what was forecast.
“It is a different world at night,” Salter said. “A mist had begun to form, and details disappeared. The wind was shifting us slowly, like sand. After a while, we were all lost, some more than others.”
The young pilot finally spotted the light of another plane and hoped it was from his squadron. He pushed up the throttle, but as he drew closer, he realized it was a DC-3 airliner.
Salter recounted:
I had been flying for what seemed like hours,” Salter remarked. “I had no idea where I was. The occasional lights on the ground meant nothing. In the airplane, I found a pamphlet entitled ‘What to Do If Lost.’ Most of the suggestions I had already tried or given up on.
Suddenly, off to the left, I saw the glimmer of bright lights and two parallel lines. It was the bridge at Poughkeepsie! Or so I thought.
I dropped lower and discovered to my dismay that I was looking at the street lights of some unknown town. I later learned that it was Great Barrington.
By this time, my fuel was running low. I had been told ‘never attempt a forced landing at night,’ but I felt I had no choice. I began to circle, but ground fog made it difficult to see.
The town was on the edge of some hills, so I banked away from them in the blackness. I kept losing my bearings.
I dropped the plane even lower and saw dark rooftops everywhere. Then I spotted a blank area like a lake or small park. [The Dewey school yard.] I was at about 100 feet when I reached down to switch on the landing lights.
As soon as they came on, I knew I’d made a mistake. It was like driving a car in the fog with the high beams on. I could see more without the lights, but I didn’t dare bend down to switch them off. The ground was only about 20 feet below at this point.
I saw some trees in front of me. They were higher than I was. I banked to get through them. I heard foliage hit the plane. A wing tore away. A landing light flooded a house—it was right in front of me. I crashed into it.
Then everything seemed so quiet. The roar of the wind and the engine were gone. I thought I must be seriously injured, but I wasn’t. Just my front teeth were loose. I was a very lucky man.
That night, I slept at the mayor’s house. [Mr. Salter was referring to Selectman Cecil “Happy” Brooks. He owned a guest house on the corner of Main and South Streets.] But I didn’t really sleep. My mind repeated the crash scene all night long. They came for me the next day in a truck, and I rode back to the barracks with the wreckage of the plane.
Returns for visit
About 20 years after the crash, James Salter returned to Great Barrington and visited with some of the Graham family.
According to Rosemary Graham Gibbons, Mr. Salter knocked on her parent’s door and asked, “Do you know who I am?”
They didn’t at first, but when he identified himself, they were quite pleased to see him.
Salter passed through Great Barrington again in the early 1990s. That visit was much quieter than his first.
“I couldn’t find the house,” he said. “So I asked a policeman, but he was too young to remember the crash. He was very helpful, though, and called a retired officer who directed us to the site.”
When asked why he hadn’t returned to Great Barrington more often, Salter replied, “I figured maybe the town had seen enough of me.”
William Graham passed away in 1997, and Rosemary Graham Gibbons died in 2003. Mr. Salter left this Earth in June of 2015 at the age of 90. His final novel, “All That Is,” was published to excellent reviews in 2013. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford wrote, “It is an article of faith among readers of fiction that James Salter writes American sentences better than anybody writing today.”
“Years after the crash,” Salter recalled, “I received an unsigned postcard. It was mailed from Great Barrington. ‘We are still praying for you here,’ it said.”
