The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 19, 1953 Page: 1 of 6
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Edward Lee Bailey, Jr.
Frank McFaden Caldwell
George William Coyle, Jr.
Edward Robert Clayton
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THRP;
An
All Student
Newspaper
Volume Forty-One Number Nine
HOUSTON, TEXAS,
THURSDAY, NOV. 19, 1953
Memorial Issue
FOR MEMBERS OF THE NROTC WHO DIED IN LINE OF DUTY.
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA, JULY 17, 1953
Dr. Tsanoff's Memorial Address
We are assembled this morning to commemorate the worst
disaster ever suffered by the Rice Institute. Deep sentiments
T>f-felk>wship and sympathy draw us together, to quicken the
cherished memories of the ten fine young men whom we have
lost. And our common bereavement impresses on our minds
the tragic problem of human
life and destiny: man's ever
precarious course in the sweep
of physical nature, but also man's
firm devotion to his duty and his
high purpose in life, despite ever
lurking perils and disasters. This
is not an occasion for long flowery
eloquence, but we should pause
briefly to meditate on the death of
our young friends, a death that
stuns us with its seeming frustra-
tion and that we try to reconcile
somehow with our faith in a reason-
able and just Providence.
Let us first recall in pious mem-
ory our ten comrades who are no
longer with us: their names, the
aim and mission on which they
were bound, and the sudden calam-
ity which wrecked them and their
opening careers in a few flaming
minutes. Edward Lee Bailey, Jr.,,
Frank McFaden Caldwell, Edward
sea. Bound on this patriotic assign-
ment, they were proceeding by air
from Corpus Christj eastward and
had boarded their plane at Whiting
Field, north of Pensacola, Florida,
on Friday night, July seventeenth,
bound for the naval base of Nor-
folk, Virginia. We can imagine
their spirit of gay comradeship as
they crowded into their plane and
were about to take off, with no
thought of their imminent and
deadly peril.
The tale of their fatal wreck is
ruthless in its brevity. It was about
midnight. The big plane had barely
taken off and was only a short dis-
tance up in the air, when through
some mishap in its operation it
suddenly swerved downward, could
not clear safely a row of trees in
its path. It smashed across the top
branches; the "collision caused its
fuel tanks to explode in flames that
Robert Clayton, George William shot through the entire plane, and
Raymond Archie Daniel
Coyle, Jr., Raymond Archie Daniel,
Robert Kay Marshall Dickson, Wal-
lis Clem Elston, Bowden Walton
Wilson, Jr., William Edwai'd Wohn,
Allen Leon Wright. Here were ten
young men of strong bodies and
alert minds, pursuing their educa-
tion at Rice and at the same time
Receiving naval instruction to pre-
pare them for service to our coun-
try in these times of world crisis.
They were devoting their summer
vacation to more direct training at
it crashed to the ground. Over forty
of the passengers were hurled un-
conscious through space, or were
choked and charred by the flames
and quickly burned to death. Only
one of the Rice students that were
aboard, J. -A. Weidler, survived
from the shock and fire of the
wreck. He is happily still with us.
Now let us search our minds as
we reflect on this horrible airplane
disaster. To millions of people who
read their newspapers or heard
the shocking news over the radio,
that was only another accident in
the air. Even so we have heard of
so many wrecks in the various lines
of modern travel, in planes or ships
or automobiles or railroad trains.
We express some general concern
over the gravity of accident statist-
ics, or else resignedly reflect that
there are unavoidable hazards in |
our complicated modern life. Lucki- I
ly, we say, we ourselves and the i
members of our families have es- j
caped so far. But see, we cannot >
always think in such general sta-
j tistical terms. This fatal calamity,
has struck the heartbroken fami- J
lies of our young friends. We can ;
never fully understand their deep |
sorrow, we can only try to imagine |
it. But our sympathy goes out to \
them, and it is a sympathy that |
springs from the heart of our own 1
grief. The disaster suffered by the I
families of our midshipmen is our j
disaster too. It has tsruck all of us, j
in our Rice family. This is not for 1
j us just another wreck; it is our j
wreck, and we cannot dismiss if >
from our minds. It grips our I
thought, and we must face the prob-
lem which it raises.
j How tan we reconcile ourselves to our
. terrible disaster; Let. lis consider fairly
that death itself is not always a tragedy,
j Death is normally the natural conclusion
j of a life that has been lived abundantly.
| a «ad but not a woeful termination. Death
| is often the merciful cessation of a life of j
j good service and happiness that lias yet
I been smitten by a lingering illness and has i
j long awaited its final release. Hut the j
deaths which we commemorate this morning
were of a different sort. Here were ten
fine young lives stricken down in the
flower of youth, in a sudden fatal accident, i
before they had had a fair chance in their !
active careers, denied their normal prospects j
of professional achievement, social service. ,
and the more personal satisfactions of love i
and home and family. How can we accept
with unprotestinii equanimity this frustra-
tion of the high purposes that give mean- J
ing to human lives?
It has been said that the lung honorable!
life and ihe final heroism of an upright j
and just man like Socrates provide our best, j
ground for belief in a Divine Provider ■■
But many of us would be puzzled H<j\v
sustain our faith in supreme divine jusii«-.
when we think of the seemingly sensele-..-
destruetion of young lives such as fine
promise as those of our ten cumr.i.h - i
Seemingly senseless, we say: can «e
some light of true significance to u- i
out of this dark confused problem'.'
Here we should recognize first the plain \
face that our human lives are bound up
with the rest of nature. We have to li -e :
our lives under the conditions of physical
existence. So the English poet Clough de- j
c la red: "Let fact be fact, and life the;
thing it can." It was a plain and brutal i
fact that the mechanism of the plane in \
which our ten comrades were flying out of ;
Pensacola did not kgep them at a safe i
altitude as it passed (Tver the trees in its j
way, and so the plane crashed down and j
was destroyed with almost total loss of i
life. Even so we may consider the entire!
course of human existence: life or death
hanging upon the turn of circumstances or t
the operation of manifold physical factors
in callous nature. And if we call nature
callous here, it should not be in a spirit of
ill will. For physical nature has neither
ill will nor good will; it is neither malig-
nant towards us nor concerned to preserve
us. It is simply a vast mechanism of
forces.
Face to face with this vast mechanism,
apparently unresponsive to our human pur- j
poses and our deepest hopes, what is to
be our reasonable reaction? Complaint and
protest are here wholly unavailing. Ye*,
but equally unavailing is the idea that this
is the whole story, all that there is to be
said. For limited solely to this outlook of
the cosmic mechanism of physical nature,
man's reason cannot recognize Itself nor its
principles and ideal values. Thinking man
(Continued on Page 6)
Wt/.W
v,9
Robert Kay Marshall Dickson
Wallis Clem Elsfon
Bowden Walton Wilson, Jr.
William Edward Wohn
Allen Leon Wright
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The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 19, 1953, newspaper, November 19, 1953; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth230953/m1/1/: accessed May 13, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.